You know I’ve often said, as so many others have, that if you do what you’ve always done you’ll get what you always have got.
It’s also true that if you do what everybody else does you’ll get the results that everybody else gets.
These thoughts came home to me the other day when I talked to a couple of people who have their properties up for sale.
In each case, the listing agent had written the description of the property to go on the website.
And it seems that each agent had done pretty much what they always did in terms of the description. Apart from a different photo the details given were very much in the same style as details given for other properties.
As prospective buyer interest had waned over the previous few weeks, I suggested I could write some totally different copy which in order to rekindle some interest.
Each of the property owners agreed and were delighted and loved the copy I had written. “That’s different”, each of them said.
But unfortunately, in both cases, the agent involved didn’t!
“No”, they said, “We couldn’t use that… it just doesn’t look right. It isn’t what we normally do. It won’t excite any interest, it won’t work.”
“Well”, said my friends, “You haven’t got much interest from your previous attempt so why not give it a go?”
But nothing my friends said to the agents could convince them to change. It had to be done just like they’d always done and it had to look like it always looked.
They were comfortably in their comfort zone and nothing would persuade them to venture outside it.
They couldn’t see that maybe there was a better way of doing it. Maybe it would work gangbusters and they’d have a great way of getting better results.
And what was the downside? What would happen if the new way didn’t work?
Well, they’d know one way that didn’t work and they could go back to their old way until they found another way to try. They’d learn each time and, the more they tried, the better they would become.
Remember Edison took 10,000 attempts to solve the problem of the light globe? But he said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
So, the simple lesson for us all is not to be stuck in a rut of doing the same thing over and over, but every day, in every way, have a look at what you’re doing and then try something different.
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