Is Your Lack of Professionalism Hurting You?

April 22, 2009 by Sandrine
Filed under Strategies

“At 10 p.m. at night?” She asked, in total shock.
“I am so sorry, Ma’am. I did not realize you were 2 hours ahead of me”
“I am not interested in anything you have to say” She interrupted.
The line went silent.

What just happened? I pondered. Obviously I had called someone I did not know at 10 p.m. for a business opportunity and she was so unhappy about it she disconnected the line. But was that what really happened?

Is your lack of professionalism hurting you? You see, I believe this incident was just the harvest of something else that had happened long before the phone call was made. It could be easy to say, “I made a big mistake” and move on. The real question is why did you make that mistake?

To help answer the question accurately let’s reflect on this fact; professionals don’t make that kind of mistake. This might give us a clue where the real problem lies. There are many steps involved in making a phone call to a potential client. If we look at each step, from making the decision to call her to calling her, we will see that I had many opportunities to find out what the time zone was.

I didn’t check any of them. Why? Because I lacked professionalism!

Your lack of professionalism might be hurting you. You may not have called a prospect at 10 p.m. but every time you behave in a way that does not focus entirely on your prospect and his or her needs, you are lacking in professionalism. The cost to you business is very high.

The sad part is that I believe she was a qualified prospect and had I acted professionally, she would have been open to exploring what I was offering. The way you have been handling yourself and your business may be giving you some level of success. However, do you know how many very qualified prospects you have lost?

When we stop to consider how many prospects we may have turned away, we realize that so many marketers would not be struggling as much if they could convert a higher percentage of those they approached in the first place. You might be making the call at the right time, but is what you are saying and how you are saying it hurting your conversion rates? More likely than not, it is.

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