I am still fuming after watching The Apprentice last week. If you have managed to miss the format, each week budding entrepreneurs are put into one of two teams and given a task to perform, usually selling something to retailers or the public. This week one of the candidates Melissa was constantly explaining how she was the best pitcher of products and that no one else should be allowed to pitch. She pitched twice, and each time showed she was completely and utterly useless at pitching because she lacked the most important sales skill known to man; ‘listening’. She would pitch her product to a major retailer and when they raised any issue with the product or her pitch she would disagree with them in a confrontational way and lose any chance of remedying the situation.
It came to the part where Lord Alan Sugar has to decide which of three people short-listed for the chop from the losing team should be ‘fired’ (or not hired technically but that is another point) and she continued to say how fantastic she was at pitching. I was worried at this point that she would probably get away with it and be kept on the show; because it is a TV Show often ‘annoying or poor performers’ remain in contention because they wind up the viewers and create more press columns. However, despite her belief that she was the best sales person in the world she was duly fired. Then she continued to annoy me even more. When getting up to leave the boardroom after she was fired, rather than accepting defeat graciously she snarled “Thanks for getting me fired” to the two other candidates who were potentially up for the chop. Then when they left she refused to shake their hands and snarled again at them to get out of her sight. Finally, her parting shot in the London Taxi as she left the show was to say clearly their had been a ‘vendetta’ against her.
What riles me so much about this is that we could all see she was useless at pitching. All of the judges told her, all of her competitors told her, yet she believed they were all out to get her. She sums up my Golden Rule Of Marketing4Solicitors number 3 – “It’s All Your Fault”. As a solicitor, businessman or woman, if you cannot get past this point and like Melissa you blame everything that goes wrong in your life or your business on everyone else except the only person who can change anything, i.e. YOU, you will never achieve the success you might enjoy if you embrace this rule. It was clearly Melissa’s fault that she was fired, yet she persisted to blame everyone around her. Until she learns this Golden Rule, I think she will struggle not only in business but in life. Don’t be like Melissa, embrace this rule now and you give yourself the power to change everything you do not like about your legal practice right now!
6 Fastest Ways To Win New Law Firm Clients – Click to download now:>>
Ready To Take Action And See Results Now?
Please call 0117 290 8555 to arrange a mutually convenient time for a telephone discussion, Email me or complete a Free Online Enquiry. There is no cost or obligation. We will have a chat about where you are and where you would like to be and I will suggest some things you can do to get there quickly.