There’s an old saying about sales.

“Nothing happens until someone makes a sale.”

I’m not sure how I lost sight of the first step in business.

The first step in business is to make a sale.

In my early days in business, I thought all I had to do was hang up a shingle, and people would come flocking to hire me to do work with for them.

I was so naïve.

Hanging up a shingle only accomplished one thing.

A shingle got hung up.

It wasn’t until I shared with people how I could help them that I started to make money.

Somehow this summer, I thought I had to have everything perfect before I shared with people how I could help them.

I fell into old habits where I believed everything had to be perfect.

What I neglected to realize was there is no such thing as perfect.

I further realized that what I think is perfect is not what my customers want.

The only way to know what my customers want is to interact with my customers and listen to them.

As I’ve done this, I’ve learned that they wanted something different.

I’ve had to take a different approach because I was only looking at things from my perspective.

Here’s the tricky thing.

My perspective matters less than the perspective of my customer.

By listening to my customers, I learn how I can serve them.

Until I ask for the sale, I don’t have customers.

If I don’t have customers, everything comes to a screeching halt.

Ask, and you shall receive.

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