FBO: Keep Your Promises—No Excuses, No Exceptions

Wednesday, October 1st 2008 by Shanel Yang

[For “FBO: Show Your Viewers the Money!,” click here.]

This part of the “FBO” or “For Bloggers Only” series is actually NOT JUST for bloggers, but FOR ALL entrepreneurs, employees, and nonprofit organizations seeking to raise funds to support their goals.

If you want millions of viewers, readers, customers, clients, members, etc., then you’ll want to follow along as we go through, one by one, the rainmaking secrets provided by Jeffrey J. Fox in his book How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients.

KEEP YOUR PROMISES—NO EXCUSES, NO EXCEPTIONS

A. FOX’S TIP NO. 7 FOR ALL RAINMAKERS

Fox’s Tip No. 7 for how to become a great salesperson, or rainmaker, is the somewhat cryptic: “Earthquakes don’t count.” He explains what he means by this:

You either made the sale or you didn’t.

No one wants to hear why you didn’t bring in the business. No one cares that “the peso was devalued,” or “the customer went bankrupt,” or “the economy is lousy,” or “a huge competitor opened next door.”

The hunter either comes home with the game or he doesn’t. His family eats or goes hungry. No one cares that “the rain washed away the deer tracks.”

A young brand manager captured the attention of his company’s sales force by offering terrific prizes for hitting defined sales quotas. The contest rules were easy: reach your quota, you win; fall short, you lose. Three weeks before the contest deadline an earthquake hit Los Angeles. The California sales office was badly damaged and business was interrupted. The California sales team did not reach its quota.

California was the largest market in the brand manager’s company. The California sales team had great influence in the company. The California sales team used all its muscle, and the powerful vice president of sales insisted the brand manager award California the prizes. The vice president argued that the California team missed its quota by “only a few percentage points” and “be reasonable … there was an earthquake.”

The brand manager firmly stood his ground, and replied, “Earthquakes don’t count.”

The next year there were record blizzards in Chicago, floods along the Mississippi, a brownout in New York City, a natural gas shortage and political crisis in Washington. The next year every region in the country hit its quota—California came in first—and everyone won a prize.

Rainmakers don’t have excuses.

B. APPLYING FOX’S TIP NO. 7 TO BLOGGERS

If you want to become an A-list blogger, apply Fox’s Tip No. 7 above to your blogging business by always keeping your promises to your viewers.

This means if the purpose of your blog is to share lots of great tips on how to save money, then stick to that topic most of the time. If your blog is known for dishing out the latest celebrity gossip, stay up on that and post it ASAP. And, if your blog is famous for being sarcastic and full of profanity, don’t switch horses midstream; stick to what’s been working for you because that’s a promise to your readers, too!

Take my blog, for example. It’s called Easy Steps to Success, so I provide a lot of step-by-step, easy-to-follow instructions about how to success in life. I also promised my readers that I would deliver a 30-days series called “All About You!,” in which I would provide such easy steps to success. That was a tall order, but I served it up! I had to because I promised it. Be careful what you promise. Think long and hard before you make any promises you might regret. But, having promised it, you must deliver! If you want to be an A-list blogger, you don’t make excuses, and there are no exceptions. When you know “earthquakes don’t count,” then you plan ahead for emergencies and deliver your promises! Come hell or high water!

CONCLUSION

I’m not saying that if you or someone very close to you is dying that your blog is more important. This point is more about the old show biz work ethic of “the show must go on!” Your blog is a show, with a regular theme (blog title and main purpose), beloved stars (content topics), and scheduling (frequency of posts).

If you truly want to become an A-list blogger, which means you must not only attract millions of viewers to your blog but you must also keep them coming back for more of the same. Like favorite TV shows, you can’t change a successful formula after millions of viewers have fallen in love with it—at least not without risking losing those millions! Remember, “Viewers Don’t Care About Your Problems,” with the tiny exception of truly personal blogs. Then you just need to be highly entertaining. But, otherwise, keep your promises—no excuses, no exceptions!

If you would like your own copy of Rainmaker someday, here’s what it looks like.

[For “FBO: Ask Your Viewers to Take Action,” click here.]

[For entire “FBO” or “For Bloggers Only” series, click here.]

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