If you have been in sales or marketing for more than a few days, you’ve probably heard something along the lines of “putting a plan into action”, “let’s talk through the strategy and action plan”, or “work smarter, not harder”. All of these phrases are critical to the success of being a good business development, sales, or marketing professional.
More importantly, though, is executing and acting on that plan/strategy. Actually putting in the work and getting it done. As I’ve grown in my career, I’ve found this to be more and more important. Too many people in my field (myself in earlier days included) hide behind making plans and coming up with the perfect strategy, but never really get to the acting part. Once they finally get to the acting part, the execution is what brings success, not the strategy or planning. No great plan alone has ever gotten the job done, execution gets the job done.
In my field of retail consulting, we constantly preach to our clients to test and learn, test and learn, test and learn. The more meetings you have to set up another meeting to set up planning for the next meeting to have another meeting…you get the idea…is only going to put you further behind. My suggestion to you is to take the same approach. Just put your message out there! Decide who is a good target, what your value props are, and go! Don’t be scared to make a mistake early on, there’s plenty of prospects out there and you won’t be doomed to some non-existent blacklist because you said the wrong thing to a mid-level marketing manager. Only way you will ever be great (or even good) is to make those mistakes, learn, and keep making more mistakes.
So, be like the guy in the featured image here. Take the leap, make some explosions, and win!
Life Of A Traveling Salesman 