Yesterday I got up at the crack of dawn and travelled 4 hours for a hot meeting. It was about as well qualified as you can get. The meeting had been confirmed and double checked. It was just a formality….ever had that feeling?
Well, sometime over the weekend their budgets got changed and so by the time I had arrived there was no longer any money available. Not a penny! Although I had been speaking to the CEO who was in theory the decision maker, the holding company implemented a freeze last thing on Friday night. He was told that if they wanted training they would have to do it themselves. We had been talking about increasing sales by 30% in 3 months. If it was that easy you would think they would have done it already!
It made me think of how cynical companies have got that they expect training to be a waste of money. They only had to speak to some of my clients who have achieved similar results – because of the holistic approach to changing behaviours rather than just teaching a few tricks. Grrrrr!
I managed to stay cool, calm, collected, and professional but it tool some effort I can tell you!
Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar often talks about taking a ‘check up from the neck up’ – This was one of those moments! It is at times like these you need to look for the opportunity. Well, the drive gave me lots of time to spend focusing on my business and thinking about stuff that I had put off. I am sure the insights gained will prove valuable over time but I would much rather have got the sale!!
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on Apr 9th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Hi Richard,
I share your pain. I’m working hard on a project myself, I bent over backwards for the client – never again – and then states that the formalities with the municipalities are not done and that it’ll take another month to start the project.
Basically, they got the engineering for free. I resolved to tell them, if they ever call me back for more info, that I’ll charge consulting fees for the past work and the additional work… ridiculous!
Alain