For a few weeks this summer, we had no air conditioning in our house. It was fine for some of the time, and then we hit that hot spell when the temperature was in the 90s all day and 80s all night, and it was…sticky.
It was harder to do everything. It all just felt like so much work.
We
just
slowed
down.
A week into this heat, we noticed that the fruit we leave out on our kitchen counter was rotting quickly, so we migrated it to the ‘fridge.
This seemed like a simple way to make sure things stopped spoiling, but it had the opposite effect.
Why? Because I see my counter every time I walk into the kitchen, but I open my refrigerator at most once for every meal.
So, two weeks later, we find ourselves throwing out a pile of refrigerated, rotten fruit, including four perfectly good, now-brown apples. Not because we don’t like fruit — for goodness sake, I love apples! Because they were ‘hidden’ on the top shelf of a refrigerator I open 2-3 times a day.
When we sell, we tell ourselves that we know that the people we are selling to aren’t “purely” rational in their decision-making.
But let’s be honest…we think they’re mostly rational.
That they’ll buy when they’re good and ready.
That they’re thoughtfully deciding about our sales pitch.
That it really is about the budget, and the approvals.
And about how closely the proposal matches their strategy and their current needs.
We think, therefore, that on some level moving the apples won’t matter. That wherever they are, no matter how often (or how not-often) we see them, that people who like apples will eat apples.
The truth is, people who like apples will eat apples that are right in front of them.
Apples that they see often.
Apples that are easier to get to than the crackers or the chocolate or the bread or the cookies.
Being the best is nice.
But showing up at the right moments in the right way, so that it’s as easy as possible to say yes to you…that’s the game changer.
