Wow, it is great to get away and disconnect.
Last Thursday I took my family, a wife, 5 year old little girl and 22 month old son, and headed up to San Fransisco for a friends wedding. Both kids were in the wedding and after coaxing the 22 month old down the isle with a piece of gum you start realize the basics and fundamentals of a successful life. I will expand a little more on that later. Not only does taking a vacation allow you to refocus back on your life motivations , re-energize your drive, remind you what is important in life, but it also allows you to revisit past topics or maybe just focus on subjects a little longer. I think my last article based on the 9 month old MIT study was a fitting article to let simmer for a few days.
I think what happens from time to time is we zoom through topics, leave a brief comments and then move on to the next. My little vacation allowed us to continue to revisit a very very important topic that every knows, but very few implement. One reader kindly left a number of conversion ratios that confirmed what we talk about here and what MIT study revealed actually works. Frankly, his conversion numbers are not all that staggering or amazing. Over a 30 day period they should be and could be the norm for any company. The overall ROI is definitely high and that could be for a number reasons from lower lead prices to flat out inflated numbers, who knows. At the end of the day, though, they are all attainable numbers, however not as easy to attain as he may have claimed. To reach these numbers you have to stop reading and start taking massive action. I was just watching Donny Deutsch and he told a caller and entrepreneur “your life is NOT a democracy it is a facetious regime and you make all the rules and decisions”, no one else.
The rules of the game are easy to follow, however does everyone?
Back to my 22 month old son. Prior to the wedding I took about a half hour running up and down the isle pretending it was a race track in an effort to get him comfortable with the act of walking down the isle. Come wedding time, literally minutes and seconds prior to him having to walk down the isle, he didn’t want to put on his little tuxedo jacket and wanted nothing to do with daddy , until I said the magic word, “gum”.
“Do you want gum”, I asked. “Mommy has gum. Let’s get some gum.”
At that very moment he allowed me to throw on his jacket and took off down the isle with his sister to get his gum from his mommy. To the aahhh’s of the crowd he looked like a perfect child. Of course they didn’t realizing what just happened and coaxing that took place.
The point of the story is a point my former boss Bill Lyons used to make. You need to have a “why”. The “why” for my son at that time was gum. My “why” along with other whys is my son and family. They are the soul of my motivation and drive. The problem many people have, who read this blog and in general, is they talk with guys like Jay who can thrive in any market with leads, they read Lead Management 101 white papers and they still don’t have a pot to piss in is because they don’t have a real reason they HAVE to succeed and don’t truly care. Those people will never succeed and will go through the motions and live a mediocre life.
So I have made a couple of points here:
- Take time to reflect
- Remember what your “Why” is. (If you have a true “why” you will never forget what it is, but allow yourself to refocus on it, possible daily)
- Success is attainable and being attained everyday by your competitors.
- Its your life and you run it as you choose.
Happy Tuesday!
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Perfect post for these uncertain times. Times where people are dazed by fear and start scrambling for shiny objects, silver bullets, and secrets.
The fact of the matter is, as I always say, GTD is about getting started. Or, as my father used to say long before GTD, “Do something, even if it is wrong.”
Find your “why” and do something!
LeadCritic, thanks for the inspiration.
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Great post LC, It is amazing what the “Right” kind of time off can do for someone. LOL
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Cool picture BTW, congrats on the child psychology.
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It reminds me of an old boss that said the day he left our company, “you have to believe in something” I never forgot it for some reason, it was a very generic thing to stay and yet it etched itself in my mind. He past away three months later and then it really stuck with me. I always wondered what exactly he was implying but it very may well have been “you have to believe in your “why”.
So often we loose sight of our roots, and in this lifestyle we become focused on outside profits. It’s great to bring it home, to the tree of “WHY”.
Nice post.
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Thank you for the kind words. It is a reminder for all of us to focus and refocus in on what we REALLY want and what really is important to us in the end on the gravestone.
I just wrote a post on goals and tracking them I hope that continues your post in a postive way.
Now I think we need to fix the problem as to why interest leads don’t convert at sustainable levels and how we can make it so they do! I still believe that it is THE fundamental problem today over the credit crunch.
How can mortgage companies convert leads that are sold over 3x (a consumer gets deer in the headlights when they get over 3 calls)?
How can lead companies survive on the leads they can’t sell (poor credit, high LTVs, bad states)?
How can lead companies provide TRUE integrity in their network (eliminating disco LOs, unlicensed liars, bad brokers)?
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