[Lesson of the day - Sowing and Harvesting] I had a JC class gathering yesterday and one of my good friends exclaimed, Ben, I dont understand how you get clients who are more senior or experienced and even, twice your age to be coached by you? Without going into a protracted discussion on value, positioning, selling and guarantees, I said, thats trade secret! only to be jeered by my folks. Besides, I had my mouth full of soft shell crab sushi and great food generally hijacks intellect for most cases. And then today, I just completed a meeting with a client and one of my customary questions I ask, How did you find me? She pointed me out to a TEDx presentation I delivered in 2011. I still recall the day of presentation was just a day before one of my toughest accounting examinations and boy was I ill-prepared. So I was really frustrated moving from internalizing my presentation outline to flipping through the accounting textbook. I even harboured thoughts of just abandoning the presentation altogether by feigning a fever or something. Im gad I didnt! A lot of people I know think that training and coaching are industries that you can enter easily as the barriers to entry are low. And when they learn that sometimes, a days of work could bring in more dough than the monthly pay of an average graduate in Singapore, they think its easy money to be made. Right. But they dont know how much work has gone into sowing the seeds before one can harvest the fruits of labour! They dont see the hours that go into marketing, business development, doing pro-bono/showcase talks and presentations (my TEDx was a prime one), preparing proposals, customizing programs, shopping for logistics, getting on calls with your clients, following up with your clients and caring for them and their family members beyond the dollar value, building continuity systems so you continually be a source of value for your clients, writing books (like my INSPIRIT book at publishizer/inspirit/! :p) and more books, responding to media requests, attending and investing in seminars and learning events to up your game so you can offer more for your clients. In fact, one of my mentor gone as far as to say that, the speaker and trainers business model is fundamentally flawed. And it may be true given the rewards to efforts ratio and that you cant scale if you stay on your own but I think when you come from a space of educating and seeing ripples of change, certain rewards are intangible, immense and immeasurable. Its always tempting (and easy) to look at outcomes but not study the process, trade-offs and sacrifices that people make. Its always an effortless move to harvest but ever so labourious to plant and sow those seeds out there. If anything, a common saying in my industry that grounds me always, It takes 5 years to be an overnight sensation And I never finished my story with this client. As I told her Im surprised people are still watching and finding about me from my engagements 3 years ago. She smiled and told me with an ounce of wisdom, Its like your legacy. They will last. And no, I havent secured this opportunity yet and Ill still need to submit a follow-up proposal. Now, whether its a go-ahead or not, I dont know. I sure wish for the better! But one thing for sure - I know Ill still be continually sowing seeds as I did, 3 years back. Good days or bad. And if you really must know, I scored a C+ for that accounting module.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 07:19:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015