Out of Sight Out Of Mind

14 February 2005

Looking Sideways with Jacques de Villiers #1

Welcome to my 1st “official” Looking Sideways of 2005. As promised, I’ll keep it short and send it to you at more regular intervals. This one will be a little longer than the others as I have to put my plans for you in 2005 in context.

Salesmanship has been classified as an art and a science. Rubbish! When you’re the one in the trenches it can only be classifed as a war. A war where every tool available has to be used to succeed. In sales it really is “winner takes all” and the rest are left sucking on the bitter pill of defeat at worst, or scrounging off the scraps that are left, at best. Or as someone once put it – “coming second is like kissing your sister – it may be OK in the backwoods of Kentucky, but really doesn’t hold water with most of us.

My dilemma in 2005 is what am I going to write about that you haven’t already heard and that can really add value to your sales careers.

I may have the makings of a solution. For those of you that know me, you’ll know that I have a keen interest in quantum physics, metaphysics, religion(s), cults (I’ve even read that crackpot, David Icke's stuff – the aliens (in earth's core) and lizards don’t do it for me), mind power, the universe, self-development, motivation, psychology and of course sales and marketing.

This year’s theme will be Making sense of our place in the Universe as entrepreneurs sales professionals, employees and employers. To this end I’ll be sharing theories from all sorts of sources and tying them into our professional lives. So, I’ll be sharing insights from Einsten, Newton, Hawkings, Jung, Planck and others. Through them, I believe I can benefit all of us in our search for self-actualisation.

Out of Sight … out of Mind

It has often been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I don’t know so much about that. From what I’ve experienced the longer you stay away from some things, the less you want them … Out of sight … out of Mind.

There’s even a formula for it.

F = G mm’
r2

The formula above comes from Sir Isaac Newton. In a nutshell, the formula says that if you double the distance between two objects, the attraction between them becomes four times weaker.

What does this mean to us in terms of our sales and marketing efforts. Simple, the less a client (or prospect) sees or hears from us, the less likely she’ll buy from us. Advertising agencies know this and understand that we have to see or hear something 6 times before it registers and before we start buying stuff.

Think about this concept and see how you can apply your mind to the very real challenge of “touching your clients” on a regular basis so that you can get them to buy more stuff from you.

Live on Purpose until next time.

Jacques
www.jacquesdevilliers.com