Your Enthusiasm Quotient

For the past few weeks I've been burning the midnight oil to complete my updated web site, online Fast Track Program, and the new Action Plan Marketing Club.

In the process of putting the finishing touches on the APM Club on Sunday, I was updating my list of the "Ten Must-Have Marketing and Selling Books" and remembered Frank Bettger's Classic "How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling."

In the first chapter, originally a talk given on a country-wide workshop tour with Dale Carnegie (we're talking 1947, folks!), Frank talks about how he transformed his selling career and life by discovering the magic of enthusiasm.

I think we give Enthusiasm short shrift these days. It's not cool to be enthusiastic. Instead we try to be laid back and hide any emotion about what we're involved in. (As if we could bore people into doing business with us!)

If you approach marketing your services that way, I promise you one thing - marketing will be a dreadful, painful, struggling slog.

Look at some of the synonyms for enthusiasm:

Keenness, ardor, fervor, passion, zeal, zest, gusto, energy, verve, inspiration, excitement, vigor, fire, spirit, avidity, devotion, motivation, commitment, willingness, earnestness.

Let me assure you, those are GOOD attitudes to bring to marketing, to business, and to life. But it seems in short supply these days. What can you do to generate it in a society that's become increasingly skeptical, let alone downright cynical?

How to Heighten your Enthusiasm Quotient

1. Fall in love with good ideas. My path to the APM Club was a talk at an Internet conference in May by Sean D'Souza. Sean convinced me that the next logical step in my business was to offer programs at graduated levels. It took me five months to implement it, but the idea took hold and never let go.

2. Trust your inner voice. If you feel you can do something, feed that feeling. We tend to starve it instead with doubt, caution, and an overabundance of "reasonableness." You feed your enthusiasm by sharing your ideas with like-minded, supportive people who are just as enthusiastic about their ideas.

3. Act as if. This was Frank Bettger's formula. He discovered that if he acted enthusiastically, he started to feel enthusiastic. I used to call this "fake it until you make it." When you exhibit enthusiasm, it's contagious and you can become addicted to it. I can certainly think of worse addictions!

4. Question your unenthusiastic attitudes. When we're feeling apathetic, bored, disinterested, hesitant, stagnant, or fearful, it's useful to ask, "What would I have to believe to feel that way?" Often it's something like: "If I really went for it 100% I might fail," or "I really don't make a difference anyway." Are those thoughts true? Can you be absolutely sure? Probably not.

5. Take on a huge project. Think of Kennedy's speech: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Today is a good day to choose enthusiasm. I can't think of a better choice, a better thing to do, or a better contribution you could make to yourself, to your business, to your community and to the world. Be enthusiastic because it's the right thing to do.

It also tends to make you rich.

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What are you most enthusiastic about in your business right now? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Comments

[mark allen roberts]

Enthusiasm is a bi-product of passionately solving your markets’ problems verse “hitting your sales numbers.”

Companies who set out to solve market problems have enthusiasm as they are on a quest to serve their market. They constantly strive to uncover unresolved problems and solve them in breakthrough ways.

I look forward to learning more about your APM club.

Mark Allen Roberts
www.gettunedin.com

[Roberta Eastman]

Enthusiasm is one of those emotions that people believe to be a risk in business.

Just as marketing the essence of your business vs. marketing a commodity based service, is perceived to be a risk.

There is some truth to that, as not everyone will get what you offer when it is being offered from an emotional place.

However, once we move past the fear and better understand one doesn’t need everyone to get it, there is nothing more contagious than enthusiasm and emotion.

What I am most enthusiastic about in my business right now?

-Continue the success, I have seen over the last year, due to fueling my business with emotion.

Thank you for such great insight, in your post.

[Mark Smith]

Good reminder Robert. I read recently in "The Art of Possibility" (by Rosamund and Benjamin Stone) about an example of the importance of our perceptions. They shared a scenario of two shoe salespeople sent to check out market opportunities in a region of Africa. One writes back that the situation is hopeless because no one WEARS shoes. The other writes back that there is a tremendous opportunity because no one HAS shoes.

Many opportunities to apply that thinking in my business. For instance, 80% of respondents to a Training Magazine survey report having Problem Solving Training in place. Two potential takes on this news. One, business will by hard to come by because most have a solution in place and it will be hard to unseat an incumbent. Alternatively, 80% know they need Problem Solving training and almost all have an inferior solution to the one we propose.

[Ruth Dubinsky]

It's exciting, motivating and energizing to know that I offer bottom-line value to my clients. Thanks for reminding me to feed that enthusiasm, rather than cave in to uncertainty and fear.

[Pamela Slim]

Excellent article Robert, and congratulations on the launch of your new service!

It sounds great. I will definitely share it with my clients and readers.

All the best,

-Pam