This morning I was reminded to never rely on others and do the work yourself because then at least you know it has been done. I was following up on a few leads for the packaging business that I sampled last year and this year. It had made no sense it was taking so long to land these clients.
The one person is a friend of my son and was actually built into the deal with a percentage of commission and yet was told how great the test went with the sample yet no sales. This morning I contacted that particular company directly and spoke with the owner and more has been achieved within 5 minutes than the last 6 months. My contact who was helping me could not get the deal done even thought it saved the company he works for money and it turns out to be a substantial amount. Quite unbelievable really and has left me in a position whether I do offer a small commission to the contact or not. I am 20% thinking yes as he at least got the sampling done and nothing else which has to be worth something. He never completed the deal so fair is fair so he will earn less commission.
The other person is someone i have known for years and promised to deliver clients and earn commission and literally has done nothing. She mentioned she sent messages out via LinkedIn to all her contacts and has done nothing else since. There is a motivation problem for sure and this morning asked for her contacts listing the company, contact name and contact number so I could at least have a crack. I would offer her a percentage for every successful sale as her information is critical to getting through to the right person.
Just getting the contact list will take some time as she said I would have it by Friday and then with more prodding by Thursday and finally she will work on it today. How hard can it be to sit down and write up 10 contacts because I know it would only take me a few minutes. I do not quite understand people who are going to be earning some money not being motivated. She mentioned she has lost all confidence and why she had not done anything so with me doing this it removes any sort of anxiety or stress. I would rather she had no involvement and she remained on the sidelines and would not even mention her involvement to the person I am dealing with. The chances are she could have left their business relationship on rocky ground and mentioning her name could be a serious negative.
There is a serious urgency right now with what I am trying to achieve and waiting on others is not going to fit into the plan. When things need to happen you need to take control and make sure they happen because clearly relying on others this is never going to happen. I realised one thing today and that I am quite motivated compared to many others and to push things in the right direction this has to be done by myself and no one else. Surely you would think money would motivate people and sadly some people are brain dead and money won't kick them into gear. In the past I have worked with teams and there is always one or two that do more work than the rest and why I moved away from that ideology. In team work everyone shares the success yet it hardly seems fair on those doing the bulk of the work.