Retiring the Balloon Model

The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 77 Degrees – 1:24 p.m.

It’s easy to let the pressure get to you in business. If you suffer from “nice guy (or gal) syndrome,” it can be even worse.

I used to think of my business kind of like a balloon. The fuller the balloon got with commitments or work, the greater the pressure inside the balloon became for me.

You can just imagine what happened when the balloon popped! It was a mess. The mess wasn’t so noticeable on the outside, the explosions all happened within.

And then, one day, I heard Dan Kennedy say something about his first available appointment for a prospect being about 2-4 weeks out into the future.

I was walking around the neighborhood when I heard that on a recording. “You mean they wait?”

Now I understand this may seem like one of the most obvious things in the world to you. But it’s not an obvious thing for a recovering people pleaser. In fact, it’s about as obvious as a needle in a haystack.

So here’s a new way to view things if you have pressure rising all around you from prospects or clients.

Instead of seeing how much “air” you can pack into the balloon, stop viewing yourself as a balloon altogether.

Instead, think of yourself as a circular conveyor belt full of little boxes. The boxes keep going around and around forever. They get filled, they get emptied.

As one box fills up, you move on to the next box. Once that box is full, you don’t put anymore in it! You simply wait for the next available box. If the next box doesn’t come around until next month, that’s when it gets used.

This is why PROCESS is salvation.

Instead of “squeezing” in that extra client meeting, get a schedule for your client meetings. Once all the slots for this week are full, it’s onto next week!

This change is so simple. And it can literally save your life.