I’m not the world’s greatest salesperson by any means, but one thing I’ve learned is that people want to do business with people who are already successful. For the most part, they view your business relationship as a stepping stone to something they want to achieve. There’s nothing wrong with this self-preservation style of thinking, and it’s actually responsible for many mutually beneficial business relationships.
The thing people desperately want to avoid, however, is being dragged down by someone else. If you’re out hustling your product, cutting your margin to the bare minimum, pleading for every scrap of business like a dog hoping for a bone, then you’re driving away your best clients.
Go out today. Buy a nice suit, set your pricing to a respectable level, and fire your worst performing clients. Walk around for a week treating yourself the way you want and deserve to be treated, and you’ll find that people respond. If you believe that you are a success and a rising star, other people will believe it too. They’ll want to be a part of whatever you’ve got going and will bend over backwards to help you.
Don’t like the “Fake it until you make it” phrase? Here are some others that mean the same thing:
- Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.
- Believe to achieve.
- Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.