Act like A Stamp
Robert M. Gignac
Taynac & Associates
54 Crawford Rose Drive
Aurora, Ontario
L4G 4R4
(905) 841-0837
Does the name Orison Swett Marden ring a bell?
Perhaps not, as he passed away in 1924. Fortunately, he left behind an
impressive legacy of writing, close to 60 published works, and is perhaps best
known as the founder of Success magazine. He spent his entire career writing about
success and encouraging others to attain it at a time when entrepreneurship was
in its infancy compared to the environment in which we pursue our businesses
today.
So why bring up the writings of someone who has
been gone for close to 80 years? Marden concluded that success was a two-part
solution. The first part he referred to as “get-to-it-iveness”. The second he
called “stick-to-it-iveness”.
Every small business that has ever been started
required an act of faith and courage, someone taking a leap into the unknown.
It has been estimated that only one in ten people who want to start their own
business actually develop the courage to begin it. For those willing to make
the effort, the failure rate is estimated to exceed 70% - showing that still
fewer have enough “stick-to-it-iveness” to continue.
Get-to-it-iveness is the easy part of the equation.
As entrepreneurs we have no shortage of ideas and inspiration to help run our
business. In fact, most of us have so many ideas that we sometimes have trouble
deciding which ones to pursue, how they should be prioritized, and most
importantly - which ones make good business sense. So I’m going to set this
discussion aside, after all, if you are reading this magazine, you’re either in
business or thinking about it.
Stick-to-it-iveness is where the rubber meets the
road. Handling the “We’d like to do business with you, but…”, “We just don’t
see a need for…”, “I don’t see the value in...”, feel free to substitute any
rejection line you’ve experienced here. Our first rejection doesn’t doom us to
failure, but fear of failure, more than anything else, can certainly hold us
back. It paralyzes our action. And it makes future failure almost
inevitable.
So what
does all this have to do with acting like a stamp? Think about stamps for a
moment - what is the most important thing that they do? I can hear you
thinking, “Well Robert, stamps facilitate the movement of a letter or package
from Point A to Point B”. Sure, no argument here. But what is the most
important thing they do? I agree that they facilitate the movement, but I feel
the most important thing they do is that they stick to the package or envelope
until it gets to the destination intended. I believe that is the true value of
a stamp. Now I can hear you thinking, “So what?”.
Ok, so
the stamp doesn’t stick to the package. What then? Should our stamp fall off
the package at any point during the journey, what happens to it? It might get
dumped into the “undeliverable” bin, after all the postal service doesn’t think
much of delivering packages with no postage. It might be sent back to us with a
request to add another stamp and try again. It might be delivered to the
destination, but with a “postage due” notice for the recipient to cover the
cost. Sometimes our stamp sticks just fine, but we don’t have the right amount
of postage on the package. These generally get returned to us with a polite
request for more.
Again I
can hear you thinking, “So what?”
Think
about the term “stick-to-it-iveness”, because this is where it
becomes important. Stick-to-it-iveness is about not giving up, it’s about
getting our best proposal or idea sent back to us as “undeliverable” and making
the effort and taking the time to make it so. If we are informed of “insufficient postage”, we make the effort
to add more content, change the focus, provide more relevant data, or perhaps
start over from scratch before we resend the proposal.
In all cases we must avoid the “postage due” to the
recipient when the package arrives. Why? Clients get upset (and rightfully so…)
when they are asked to pay for things they expected to get as part of the
package (no pun intended!). We shouldn’t be selling skills and talents we don’t
already have before we are hired. Clients neither expect nor want to be paying
our “tuition” while we develop the expertise on-the-job for them.
Stick-to-it-iveness is a characteristic that we all
must acquire in order to make our businesses a success. It will keep us going
on the days when things don’t go as planned, or when we aren’t sure if our own
business was such a good idea. You can call it perseverance, dedication, focus,
commitment, endurance, stubbornness, persistence or any other term you like -
but I like the term “stick-to-it-iveness”.
When you make your next trip to the mailbox, take a
second look at the stamps that are taking your mail out, and those that brought
your new mail in. Resolve to be just like them - stick to it until the job is
done.
Bio:
Robert
Gignac is the owner of Taynac & Associates, offering keynote speeches,
seminars and workshops on personal and team development, motivation, and
leadership. Contact him at: rgignac@taynac.com
or check their website at www.taynac.com.
Copyright 2002 - Taynac & Associates