What Can Watching a Fly Teach You About Selling?

By Tessa Stowe

At the beginning of the book " You Squared", by Price Pritchett, Price tells the following story about a fly.
I'm sitting in a quiet room at the Millcroft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden back amongst the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto. It's just past noon, late July, and I'm listening to the desperate sounds of a life-or-death struggle going on a few feet away.

There's a small fly burning out the last of its short life's energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the windowpane. The whining wings tell the poignant story of the fly's strategy - try harder.

But it's not working.

The frenzied effort offers no hope for survival. Ironically, the struggle is part of the trap. It is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at breaking through the glass. Nevertheless, this little insect has stacked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination.

This fly is doomed. It will die there on the window sill.

Across the room, ten steps away, the door is open. Ten seconds of flying time and this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks. With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could free itself of this self-imposed trap. The breakthrough possibility is there. It would be so easy.

Why doesn't the fly try another approach, something dramatically different? How did it get so locked in on the idea that this particular route, and determined effort, offer the most promise for success? What logic is there in continuing to, until death, to seek a breakthrough with "more of the same"?

No doubt this approach makes sense to the fly. Regrettably, it's an idea that will kill.

"Trying harder" isn't necessarily the solution to achieving more. It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life. Sometimes in fact, it's a big part of the problem.

If you stake your hopes for a breakthrough on trying harder than ever, you may kill your chances for success.

Great story. Poor fly. So what is the sales lesson?

There are some prospects that no matter how hard you try they are simply not going to buy from you. They may not have a problem you can solve. Even if they do have a problem you can solve, they may not want to solve it. Also maybe they can't afford your solution or justify it. There are lots of very valid reasons why someone is not going to buy from you.

With these prospects 'trying harder' is simply going to exhaust you and take you away from focusing on prospects that are going to buy from you.

So find the easy route - the open door - and determine which prospects are highly likely to buy from you and focus on them.

_____________





You determine which prospects are highly likely to buy by putting them through a qualification process. Stop trying harder. Hard work won't win you sales. Selling only to qualified prospects will. Sell only to qualified prospects and you'll make more sales - faster - and it will require a lot less effort.

If you want to learn a qualification process, I highly recommend you attend the teleseminar which is being given by Tessa Stowe from SalesConversation.com. For all the details, click HERE.