I remember taking road trips to my Grandma Pauline's house in North Carolina when I was growing up. She lived way out in the backwoods, so far away from civilization it seemed that you had to go toward town just to find the country, or so I was told.
The one thing I remember about all those trips down south, above everything else, was the sight of the hogs in the pen: all the grunting, running from here to there, and of course their favorite part of the day, when they would get "slopped"...it was feeding time, and all the hogs were in a frenzy fighting among themselves to get to the food. And of course it goes without saying that besides eating, their favorite activity was wallowing in the mud all day to keep cool. Just grunting, getting slopped, and wallowing...that was the lot of a pig's life, and he was quite content with it. Had no need for anything else.
Now suppose I told you it was your job to take a bunch of those pigs, get them all cleaned up, and somehow find a way to train all those pigs to sing on stage as a chorus, in a choir, or dare I say it, an opera. I can hear you laughing now. That doesn't make any sense, you're saying. Pigs have no place doing anything like that...they're pigs, after all. It would take up a lot of time, a lot of effort, and most likely cost a great deal of frustration on your part and aggravation on the part of the pig. Simple, right?
Long story short, it's not hard to figure out that trying to get a pig to do something it doesn't want to do would be a losing proposition for all concerned. Face it, you just won't get anywhere doing that. You'd have better luck driving cross country with your emergency brake on (also not the wisest strategy, but somehow I believe you get my meaning). With that being said, why do we insist in business that we "need" to convince people to do things they don't want to do in order to build a business? Wouldn't it be much simpler to find people who have an interest in the product or service we have to offer? Wouldn't that make a big difference in the amount of stress, frustration, and drama we'd have to endure?
I heard a gentleman say this years ago, and it still rings true to this day:
"Stop wasting time trying to get a pig to sing. It frustrates you, and aggravates the pig."
We spend far too much time trying to convince people to see what we're offering, and buy what we're selling when them absolutely no interest or desire in anything we have to show them. Wouldn't it make more sense to find people who want what we have, and show them how what we have can help them get whatever it is that they want? Instead of capturing their interest, wouldn't it be much easier to attract it? Entice it? Even seduce it, so to speak? Supermarkets do it. Car manufacturers and dealers do it. And you know for sure that restaurants, amusement parks, and all kinds of vacation destinations do it, along with all other kinds of business and non-business establishments (schools, hospitals, even churches)....
So why shouldn't you...? It's much more effective (and a lot more fun) to draw people to you than to chase people down. For one very important reason:
When you draw people's attention, it's a lot easier to JUST BE YOURSELF:
"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." - William Shakespeare
If you would like to know more about what NOT to do to attract attention, as well as useful strategies you can use to improve your relationships in business, as well as life in general, click here:
http://bit.ly/1fkp8FL
That's all for now, gotta run. Until we meet again, remember...
Keep it simple...
See ya!
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