Why do some sales people just scrape by and others thrive? If you went on their sales calls with them, you would notice a disparity in the amount of times they asked. The successful sales person asks and asks often.
Life is a sales call.
To get what you desire in this lifetime, you have to ask and ask often. People are not mind readers but we treat them as though they are. If you’re counting on someone else knowing what you want without asking, you’ll be able to count the times they deliver on one hand.
You would be amazed at the number of people I have coached over the years who do not practice asking. What they say they want is only questions away, but, instead, they question my strategy of asking, and tell me that they’re not the type of person who asks. They often prefer hinting.
Again, it’s time for a comparison. Compare the times you got what you wanted by hinting vs. outright asking. You will find that asking is the hands-down winner.
Asking in life is mandatory and the more often you ask, the better the odds are of getting what you want.
Some people make the mistake of making the same request of the same person over and over again. You’re probably not going to sell a subscription to
Good Housekeeping to a homeless person but that doesn’t keep some people from asking the same question of the same people and not noticing the lack of results. You have to branch out and make requests of everyone.
Asking needs to be an every day thing, not just something you do when all else has failed. You want to condition yourself to ask. It may not have occurred to you, until now, that what you get in life comes from other people. If you’re not asking them, you aren’t receiving. It’s really that simple.
Asking doesn’t guarantee getting the results you want but it sure has much better odds of delivering them than remaining silent.
If asking is foreign to you, start small. Ask for extra ketchup at the drive-up window. That will help you get your feet wet. Make it a point to request 10 things a day for a week. Then up the number of request you make to 15 the next week. This will get you in the habit of requesting. The idea is to make asking for what you want second nature and not something you bring out once in a blue moon.
Asking is not a new concept. It’s been around since the dawn of time. But unless you take the time to ask, you’ll continue to question why you’re not getting the things you want.
All the best,
John
