Throw the preservers

Yesterday I had a brief conversation with a "suspect." A suspect is someone who looks like they might be a prospect, but upon further discussion reveals that they are not:-) Anyway, this man is pleasant, and works in a factory. He has done this for years and he is very dissatisfied with where he is in life. He is "looking" for a way out and "has been for years" but he just can't seem to find anything.

According to him, everything he finds that looks good to him, requires a little too much money up front. So he can't try those opportunities because he doesn't have the money. He mentioned figures like a thousand dollars. I immediately know at this point, that he is averse to financial risk (because anyone can find a thousand dollars if they really want to) so I mention that my business requires no sign-up fees. That it is a simple referral process, that anyone who is nice and honest can do if they are willing to follow proven track and work at it.

He then asks me what types of products I work with and I tell him that we work with the manufacturer of the highest quality wellness oriented products in the market. At this point he tells me that he is skeptical of the wellness industry because there is so much competition. We chat for another minute and I share the perspective that competition is a sign of a healthy market place and ours in particular is one of the strongest growth markets of our lifetime. At this point, he says he would like to see my video clips and I get his email address.

But I already know I am wasting my time, so before I go through the 5 minutes it takes me to write an email and send the link, I nicely say to him, "before I send this are you sure you want to take a look? I know how you feel about competition, so its okay for you to say no and look for something else." At this point he says no and we bid each other a kind farewell. This last part took me 30 seconds and saved me a ton of time.

You see, I knew he had no informed, intelligent response to what I had said about competition. Because this was simply an excuse for him as to why HE couldn't succeed. Much like the investment being too high in the other things he looked at. Had I been working with a "wonder widget" that had no competition and was a new market, he would probably had the reason that there was no proof that what I was doing would work.

This man is drowning in a pool of comfortable misery of his own creation and each excuse he creates allows him to feel like a victim. I am on the deck of the ship that is sitting in the pool. I am throwing a life preserver into the pool, but he says "its too far to swim to get to the preserver!" It isn't my job to jump into the pool and try to save him. It is my job to let him know that if he ever needs a preserver I have a really good one and I am happy to throw it to HIM when he is ready to swim to it. Until then, every second I spend trying to convince him he should do it, is precious time I could be using to throw preservers to people who are ready to grab on and leave the pool.

Given this man's outlook on life and himself, he will never leave the pool. He isn't really looking for something to get out with, he is just looking for ways to justify his inaction in life. He will be destined to a life he does not like because he is choosing it. By the way, 2 minutes later I had a conversation with woman who was extremely enthusiastic about checking out my life preserver. Had I been typing the email...I might have missed her. Throw the preservers...throw 'em as fast as you can to as many as you can and pull in the ones who grab on!