It’s Not Them. It’s You.

Your dream client won’t take your calls or return your emails.

Another prospective customer takes your calls, but won’t commit to giving you time for a meeting.

Still another prospect won’t agree to give you access to the stakeholders within their organization, the ones you need to build the right solution and win a deal.

The more you focus on what they won’t do, the less likely you are to get the response you need. You have a strategy, an approach, and a value proposition. Your dream client has a strategy, too. Your strategy is not working. Their strategy is.

It’s Not Them. It’s You.

But if you want your client, dream client, or customer to respond differently, you have to change the stimulus. You have to change what you are doing–and how you are doing it–before they change how they respond.

No one loves pig-headed stubbornness more than I do. Achieving the outcome you need by persisting is a critical attribute for people who succeed. But doing so without changing your approach isn’t.

You provide a stimulus. You receive a response. That response is feedback. When what you are doing fails, try again. But also try something different.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

They won’t return your call? Change the message. Change the value proposition. Deliver coffee (try it).

Won’t respond to email? Pick up the phone. Call someone else. Find someone to make an introduction. Send a calendar invite with a note asking them to send back times that work better if they are unavailable.

Can’t get the commitment you need? Change the ask. Do a better job explaining how your dream client benefits from saying yes and improve the value proposition.

You produce the results you want when you recognize that the only thing you have any power to change is you. Change your beliefs. Change your actions. Change your results.