I recently attended a Jim Rohn seminar and he was discussing how you shouldn’t let other people’s negative behavior impact your life and what you are trying to achieve. When met with a person that cuts you off while you are driving down the road, your instinct may be to get upset, yell, scream and possible some non-verbal gesture. In reality, what good does that do?
You may think, but they shouldn’t cut me off. Well, no, that is what they do, that is why they are called cutter offers. We get upset when someone treats us bad, does something dishonest or lies to us. Here is a simple truth – liars lie.
I once heard that leopards don’t change their spots. What is meant by that is that the best way to predict future behavior is from past behavior. A person that has cheated you in the past, or has lied to you previously has a good likely- hood they will do it again.
In the world of marketing we say there is no failure, only testing. We are always looking for the slight change we can make to our business and marketing systems just a little better. So when we try a new headline or an offer, you will probably have one of three things happen… it will improve response, decrease response or you will have no change. At that point you have additional information upon which to make decisions on.
My mentor and friend Dan Kennedy always suggests giving a tremendous guarantee on any product or service you provide. Of course this will increase initial response and get more people to take you up on the offer, but it also serves another objective as well. Once someone asks for their money back, they have identifies themselves as a person that may indeed be a person you do not want to do business with in the future. In any situation where someone asks for a refund on a product or service where we delivered everything we promised, we take them off our list, never market to them again and in fact, will not offer them the opportunity to do business with us in the future.
Harsh you say? Maybe so and indeed you may lose a few dollars selling them a lower price product or something in the future, but the time and energy you save by only working with and serving the needs of your highest valued clients will come back to you in many ways.
Face it, liars are liars and there is really nothing you can do to change their behavior, in fact you might even go crazy trying. The best use of your energy is to indentify those people, customers and vendors you want to do business with, as well as the ones you don’t, and run your business accordingly.
So the next time you have someone cut you off or demonstrate some other random act of stupidity, simply think of that as a sign, a piece of knowledge that you now know what type of person you are dealing with and understand… that is just them… that’s the way they are.
To Your Success,
Terry Bryan
