Creating A Persistence Attitude
© David Newton
Sunday, March 28, 2010
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”
Whenever I give a talk about meeting people techniques, the topic often comes up about dealing with set back and temporary defeats on the pathway to success.
It seems that some people all too often would rather give up and have a great sounding alibi so they can relax back in a life lacking in results and the happiness of making new friends in their lives.
Being persistent doesn’t mean you have to be pushy or nagging towards others. But what it does mean is to not give up when you get rejection or a brush off from those you approach to speak with or attempt to make friends with.
A few years back my good friend Allan Pease gave a talk explaining some of this. He said on a sales training course that we all get rejected, its just how you look at it. Imagine knocking on doors to sell insurance in the suburbs. He said its not the technique you have that will get sales, he says a certain percentage of households are already thinking of buying it at any time.
In his example, he states that if you knocked on say 30 doors an hour, you’d probably get invited inside to about 2 of them who came to the door each hour. Saying the only words “You don’t want insurance do you?” Allowing for time to present and sign people up he says its not the technique that would gain you an excellent income, but simply being persistent and sticking to a regimen of cold calling, you would enjoy an executive income by working no more than a regular 35 hour week knocking on doors.
Same too applies to meeting people – it’s a persistence attitude – regardless of your technique, your looks or your status in life that will get you all the breaks you need and want.
Dr Richard Wiseman the author of The Luck Factor says something similar.
Wiseman says, that the big difference between lucky and the un-lucky is a matter of persistence. The lucky individuals tend to try just a little bit extra over that of those who are un-lucky. Lucky people tend to have a more positive outlook on life and aren’t easily put off by temporary set backs. Where as un-lucky people shut down quickly when things don’t go as planned.
Can the technique of persistence be learned?
In my case I feel that it can. Years ago I was going through a hard time. My flatmate an old school friend of mine decided to teach me the board game of Chess, as I had lots of free time then. After a matter of a couple of months I was able to play well and even began to beat him on a few occasions. My confidence soared as a result.
What the game of Chess taught me was to see and think ahead. It worked on me at a personal and a professional level and soon I was back at work and doing much better than before. My flatmate taught me to play the game regardless of how I was doing which was a good discipline for me, as I would easily give up. He told me to look at and ask questions to see things from a new light about the game I was playing. In real life these skills transferred over well for me, it can do the same for you too.
Longer Term Planning
Persistent people develop longer term strategies for their success. They see into the future and think what they might need in the present to gain a future needed goal. In other words, they are good planners and anticipate any shortfalls they have in reaching a goal.
Persistence and Rejection
What I’ve found with persistent people is that they are persistent without being pushy. They know that not all rejection is a personal thing. What some people who give up quickly fail to see is that there are two types of rejection – such as 1. Early brush off rejections from a cold approach to speak with a stranger and that of 2. Personality based rejection – which happens with people who reject speaking with them due to miss matching of personality and personal style.
The more confident types realize that brush off rejection is never a personal thing and will try later or make a different approach after a short time. This means that they have an extra 50% or more opportunities to make successful conversations. As a result, they enjoy meeting people and enjoy a higher level of success in their life due to this outlook.
People Can And Do Change Their Minds
I once worked with a large telco company that was trying to get people from another large competitor telco to come back to them again.
My team was working on making calls to customers who were still with the opposition – who actually said “NO” at least once before and were on our list. What we did was to call them up and say hello and make small talk, while doing so we would gently offer them inducements to come back to our carrier and what we found was that at least one in 20 calls this would happen.
How so you ask? Well its like this they might have got out of bed and found that the carrier they changed to wasn’t quite what they expected, and our call was welcomed. So they re-joined up with us. Our success was all due to the fact that people can and do change their minds and if given time and asking them at regular intervals, they would eventually listen to us.
Same works with talking with people. Even the hardest most arrogant person will one day have a soft day and be a listener and not the critic. If you’re on the scene, you’ll find that you can make a breakthrough, if you keep in touch and be of a friendly nature. If you gave up too early, you’d never know this potential change, many people miss it. Persistence works, just keep at it long enough and you’ll see for yourself.