Saying No To Good Opportunities

Tracey started her video production company 2 ½ years ago,
and after struggling through the start-up phase, she was finally
reaping the fruits of her labor. When we talked, it was clear
that she was ready to move onward and upward but didn’t
know how to go about doing it.

“I am so busy these days, but I’m still not getting the level of
work I want,” Tracey told me. “I really want to get in with
some bigger companies, but I’m always scrambling to get
my current projects done.”

“When I first started my business, I just wanted to get some
clients, any clients. Now, I have people calling me up to do
jobs for them, but those aren’t the jobs I want anymore. I
mean, I need them, but I also want to start doing bigger
projects for bigger clients.”

“All the people calling me are small business owners I’ve
met at the networking meetings I attend. I know we talked
before about the fact that I’m not going to meet the reps
from the big companies there, so I need to develop a
different marketing strategy to reach them, but I just don’t
have the time. I keep thinking I’ll reach a point where I’ve
got things under control, so I can start pursuing the bigger
guys, but I never get there.”

It was clear that Tracey was exhausted from going through
the same cycle over and over again, so I thought I would
give her brain a reprieve by taking her back in time. “Do
you remember when you told me about that guy that you
met at a networking meeting last year? He was hounding
you about making him a video, but you really didn’t see
the opportunity there. He didn’t seem to have any money
budgeted for it and didn’t have a clear concept of why he
needed it and what he would use it for. You just didn’t feel
like he was a good prospect, so you told him that you were
too busy to take on his project.”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“Well, there was a time when you would have seen him as
a viable prospect. You would have set up a meeting, spent
a few hours going to/from the meeting, spent a few more
writing up a proposal, placed numerous follow-up calls
only to learn that there was ultimately no chance of
getting a dime from this guy. Over time, you learned to
qualify prospects, so you didn’t waste your time. By the time
you met that guy, you already knew how to spot a bad
opportunity and had developed the ability to say “no” to
them.

“He was easy to turn down. He just didn’t have a clue. There
was no way he would have ever turned into a paying client,
so it wasn’t hard at all to tell him that I couldn’t help him out.
But, I’m not talking about people like that. The people
calling me are good prospects, but the projects they need
me to do are just small. I just want to start getting some
bigger projects too.”

“Well, you say you’ve been trying to get around to marketing
to bigger companies for the past eight months, right? But yet,
you continue to go round-and-round hoping that you’ll
suddenly find the perfect moment to work on your marketing
strategy to reach the bigger companies. It hasn’t happened
yet so, just for a moment, let’s assume that this cycle will
continue indefinitely. What do you think it will take to break
it?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I keep waiting for the right time when things
slow down, so I guess the cycle will end when things slow down
enough for me to think about it. I was hoping the summer
would give me a break, but it didn’t. Maybe the holidays?”

Tracey was doing what a lot of us have done at some time
or another. She was letting her business run her instead of her
running it. So, the summer didn’t break the cycle and the
holidays won’t break the cycle. SHE needed to break the
cycle.

What I asked her to do is to start to distinguish between good
opportunities and great ones. She’d learned awhile back how
to say “no” to bad opportunities. What she needed to learn
to do now is how to say “no” to good opportunities, so she
could say “yes” to the great ones.

Most of her incoming phone calls were good opportunities,
but the great ones were ones that she would need to put
effort into pursuing. There was an opportunity lost during the
eight months she filled with small projects. She lost the
opportunity to be making contacts at the bigger companies,
to be doing jobs for the bigger companies, and to be adding
higher level projects to her portfolio.

Over the next month, we assessed the reasons behind why
she was letting her business run her. Was she ready for the
transition or was she rushing it? Maybe she really wanted to
just stick with doing what she knew she could do well. Bigger
clients could potentially require her to do things she didn’t
have experience doing yet. Is that scary, I asked her.

It also takes a different approach to reach and pitch bigger
clients. Was she uncertain about what marketing methods
to use to reach them? Or did she know that cold-calling was
the best way to reach her target market but didn’t want to
have to make the calls? Or maybe she was afraid of meeting
with some big executive of a multi-million dollar company.

After working through some of the potential blocks, Tracey
laid out a plan for marketing to the big companies in her area.
She contracted an assistant to make the preliminary phone
calls to qualify prospects and set up meetings. Once the
meetings were set, Tracey felt fully confident in presenting
her services to the decision-makers. Within 2 ½ months, she
had two new “bigger” clients and was outsourcing some of
the smaller jobs to colleagues she had met through her
networking meetings.

Take a note from Tracey -- learn to say NO to good
opportunities, so you can say YES to the great ones!

Are you saying “yes” when you should say “no”? Here’s
how to find out. Ask yourself the following questions:

* What is your vision for your business?
* What is missing where you are now?
* What needs to happen in order for your vision to become a
reality?

The process to follow is to:
1. develop a crystal clear vision of what you want your life
to look like
2. use your life vision to create the vision of what you want
in your business
3. make a list of what actions you need to take in order to
go from where you are now to where you want to be
4. take consistent actions toward your vision
5. evaluate every new opportunity to determine if it moves
you closer to your vision

It’s a BAD opportunity if:
* you don’t feel good about the work you’d have to do
* you wouldn’t be paid fairly
* you don’t like the people you’d have to work with

It’s a GOOD opportunity if it:
* gives you good experience but pays poorly
* pays well but doesn’t fit with your vision
* you’d enjoy the type of work and pay but not the
people you’d work with or place you’d do the work

It’s a GREAT opportunity if:
* you love the work you’re doing
* get paid well for what you do
* feel inspired and invigorated by the people you’d
work with and the place you’d do the work

Happy Opportunity Hunting!