Pigeon Poo

Two years’ ago I made the mistake of parking in a hotel car park under a huge tree. When I returned to the car two days’ later it was covered in pigeon poo which had been burnt on by the mid-day sun. What a mess and I swore never to repeat the mistake.

During the next year of using the same car-park, sure enough, I never repeated the same mistake.

But after a gap of almost a year, I returned to the same car park.  I arrived late; I was tired and parked my car in the same space. And, yes I returned later to find my car completely covered in pigeon poo. I’d been grockled. Again.

What an error I thought but then again was it? And this made me ponder about our worlds as salespeople and coaches:

  • There’s no problem repeating messages, after all people forget.
  • Coaching is about repetition. Repetition is the mother of all skills
  • Aid memoirs can be produced to remind people. Think of fire extinguishers and the labels on the sides, or fire procedures pinned to the office wall.
  • Revisiting key messages for customers during the sales meeting.
  • Repeat training events at sales meetings
  • Contacting orphan clients who you haven’t done business with in ages, after all, they might have forgotten you.

I’m sure you’re already thinking about the things you can do.

And my car? It was caked on this time, took me three automatic car washes, two manual car washes and some elbow grease to get it clean.

Never, ever again.