Peas for Breakfast - Have a Two-Year-Old Run Your Company (for a Bit)
We are creatures of habit—at least many of us are. We have morning routines, restaurants we like to frequent, vacations we take each year. I am no exception.
I eat the same thing for breakfast at least five days a week. For my two-year-old twins, I have a rotation of three or four things that they eat in the morning. One day last week, I was holding one of them as I opened the refrigerator door to get more yogurt (pronounced yo-GIT) to give them. She spied a container of green peas left over from last nights’ dinner…and she asked for them. I answered her, “Oh no honey, we don’t eat peas for breakfast.”
Then I stopped myself. And I said, in my head, “Why the hell not?”
I took out the peas and gave them to her cold; she ate the whole container.
So what is my point, you ask? Here it is: If someone asks you, “Why do you mail your invoices that way?” and your answer is, “Because that’s the way we’ve been doing it for 30 years.”—you might have a problem.
Doing something without thinking about it, without considering alternatives, can be dangerous and destructive to progress and improvement. Bill and I are always telling you and our clients that one of the best ways to get the attention of a prospect is to bring them some new ideas.
That means we have to be open to new things ourselves, if we are going to ask strangers to jump on our bandwagon.
Everyone needs to shake things up from time to time—take a new way home, try that fancy new greek yoghurt for breakfast, head to a new vacation spot. It’s good for the brain and the soul to experience new things.
It is even MORE important that your organization experience new things, especially if that means bringing new products or services to your customers (who expect that) or improvements to your workflow, or a better return on your investments with regard to training, marketing or promotions.
Get a little nutty folks—have peas for breakfast. Or, at the very least, make sure you have a better answer than, “Because we’ve always done it that way!”
- Categories:
- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Blogger, author, consultant, coach and all around evangelist for the graphic arts industry, Kelly sold digital printing for 15 years so she understands the challenges, frustrations and pitfalls of building a successful sales practice. Her mission is to help printers of all sizes sell more stuff. Kelly's areas of focus include sales and marketing coaching, enabling clients to find engagement strategies that work for them and mentoring the next generation of sales superstars.
Kelly graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Political Science and, among other notable accomplishments, co-founded the Windy City Rollers, a professional women's roller derby league. She is also the mother of two sets of twins under the age of ten, so she fears nothing.
