Successful people are proactive. They win the business that unsuccessful people don’t because they do the necessary things that unsuccessful people don’t, like asking, calling, following up and networking. In other words, they’re active rather than reactive.

Business coach Nigel Percy recently reminded me that ‘doing’ is always better than waiting. Waiting contrasts with activity. Waiting is passive. Waiting for permission is asking to be told ‘no’. People wait for seven reasons:

1. More clarity. What often becomes clearer is not your situation, but only your thinking on the situation. 
2. Greater ease. Few things get easier in building your business by leaving them. Things get easier by you doing them a lot. 
3. To see others try it first. While this applies to jumping into a cold swimming pool with a few friends, it’s different in business because you have no friends. They’ll happily go out to both create and convert the opportunities you’re waiting to see are out there. 
4. Less fear. Perhaps you feel you might jepoardise the relationship by asking for the meeting, the business or simply the answers you want. Fear often increases when you don’t confront it. Many doors are opened and many a piece of business is won not by waiting but by pushing through the nerves and the fear and asking for it anyway.
   
   "Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late."
   - Rita Coolidge
5. The right moment. You can always take more time to prepare. You can always take an age to get your pitch perfect. Sometimes asking for business and pushing on to close a deal is like having a baby – there’s never a right time! How much more successful will you be if you're 90% perfect than if you're 70% perfect? Certainly not 20%.
6. More signs. Need a green light? Nobody is going to ask you if you want more business or more referrals. If you're sat in your office waiting for the stars to line up or a booming voice from heaven, then you're doomed to a life of inertia and inaction. Which means poverty, lack and unfulfilled potential.
7. More resources. Yes, you could increase your chances of making the connection with a desired prospect if you had a bigger budget, a strong advertising campaign, a hefty direct mail campaign and a targeted follow-up telemarketing campaign. But people are doing less with more, simply because they're taking action, asking questions and NOT WAITING!

There is only one thing that allows you to win good business and create strong opportunities while doing nothing, and that’s a great reputation! For everything else, there’s hard work, action and courage!

"Good things come to those who wait – but only the stuff left behind by those who hustle."
Nigel Percy

Nike have developed a billion dollar global brand around the strapline, ‘Just do it’. Perhaps you could heed those words and get doing it too! Here are the two rules for doing rather than waiting:

It’s not always about how good you are. People not as good as you are winning more business as you read this.

The time is never perfect. Sure, there are right and wrong times to ask, to position and to bring up, but generally speaking, to ask and to move is better than to dwell and to mumble.

If your reputation is anything less than world-renowned, or at least the 'go to' professional for what you do in your target market, then you need to be out there mixing it, playing the game and asking the right questions of the right people.

Rob's Quick Tips