Make Your Ten Most-Wanted List

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What you put in your mind and write down has power

     

Lenann McGookey Gardner

Sales Expert and Executive Coach

     

“What you put in your mind has power,” said Gardner. “Many successful salespeople keep a Ten Most-Wanted List all the time. This is a list of ten people with whom you would love to do business.”

“It doesn’t matter if you even know these folks,” she added. “The act of writing down their names on your Ten Most-Wanted List, and then looking at that list with some regularity, increases the likelihood that you’ll do business with them!”

You’ll have the list in mind, and then meet someone who knows someone, who could introduce you. It’s like the “six degrees of separation” thing – the idea that you can get from any person to any other person on the planet by going through no more than six connections between them! What you say you want – and then write down and read with any regularity – is much more likely to happen.

Write up a “Ten Most-Wanted List” and read it daily.

My most amazing example of “what I put in my mind is likely to happen” is something that occurred several years ago. I had always wanted to go to Africa, and then I received a notice that my graduate school was having a global alumni conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Thinking that the discounted airfares and hotel rates during the conference would be my best chance to see that part of the world (after all, I didn’t know anyone in Africa, so what was the chance that someone there would hire me and pay all my expenses?) I sent off a check for $700 to reserve a space at the conference.

Within two weeks I had a paid engagement in Africa! In fact, we went to Africa for the conference and a safari, returned home for one week, and then I had to get on a plane to go back to Africa to do the work for the client (that’s two nine-hour time-zone adjustments in two weeks!).

A lesson learned: Say it or write it down no matter how unlikely and it’s more likely to happen.

Lenann McGookey Gardner is a Harvard MBA, an American Marketing Association “Professional Services Marketer of the Year” award winner, and a 2010 winner of the “Top Performing CEO” award from her state’s Business Weekly. She has two decades of experience helping services providers to grow their revenues and is the author of Got Sales? The Complete Guide to Today’s Proven Methods for Selling Services. She is also an Executive Coach. Learn more at www.YouCanSell.com.

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