Monday Morning Match is a simple post – maybe a quote, inspirational story or idea – intended to spark some motivation inside each of you so your week gets off to a fantastic start on Monday morning.
A little more than a month ago, our local area received a lot of rain. It seemed like it rained every day. It rained in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. It rained while we were sleeping. It rained during the week, slowing down the commute to and from work, and it rained on the weekends, canceling or delaying golf, baseball, soccer, and any other event or activity that was planned. Everyone was complaining and miserable. “When will it ever stop raining?” was the chorus being sung from every wet neighborhood across town.
Fast forward just 30 days or so to today. The ground is dried out, the grass in yards and local parks is starting to brown, tree leaves are drying up and starting to fall, and the flowers in gardens and landscape beds around town are starting to wilt. When it was raining every day, we complained of the smell of worms when we’d walk outside. Now, we avoid going outside because it’s so dusty and dry.
All we can do is wait. We can watch the local meteorologists every night on the local news or check our weather app multiple times a day but that isn’t going to make it rain. Even when the conditions are right, it still might not result in any rain. We can’t control the weather. All we can do is be prepared to react to it when it finally starts raining again.
Could Your Business Use Some Rain?
I had a listing sell very quickly last week and secured a new buyer a few days before that. It was refreshing. A few more opportunities were bubbling up like thunderheads in the distance and I was expecting a deluge of business. The cliche “when it rains, it pours” was going to resemble my business. I was just about to grab my proverbial rain coat and boots when those deals on the horizon slowly started to dry up the way storm clouds pass and the evening sunshine starts to poke through.
A job transfer that was supposed to be happening was put on hold, a buyer who liked a property was outbid by another interested party, and a speaking gig was tentatively pushed back a few months…or maybe more. As I said before, even when the conditions are right, it still might not result in any rain. We can’t control the weather. All we can do is be prepared to react to it when it finally starts raining again.
When your business feels like it’s drying up, what can you do to increase the chances for new opportunities? You’ve spent your entire career putting seeds in the ground with every interaction and relationship you’ve created, nurtured, and built. The water you might need to create the next harvest could be a phone call, a text, an email, or a hand-written note. It might mean popping by a client’s home to say hello or provide a local real estate market update.
Unlike a golfer who schedules a weekend tee-time and prays it doesn’t rain, maybe you need to be scheduling an open house for this weekend and doing the rain dance every day asking for a turnstile of people to pass through to take a look. Could you drip on a FSBO in your neighborhood, or make a splash with a new video? What are the things you can do that might turn on the spigot of leads? Do you know what WET means? – Works Every Time!
What do you need to do this month…no, this week…no, scratch that…what do you need to do today that might start sprinkling some opportunity and before you know it, it’s pouring with possibility?
If you start building relationships, solving problems and having fun, it might be smart to listen to the weatherman. Grab your umbrella. It looks like it might rain.
Photo courtesy of Fabio Neo Amato
Photo courtesy of Neven Krcmarek