I was reading Tim Ferris’s  “The 4 hour workweek” book and he talks about how much easier it is to do the unrealistic rather than the realistic, it got me thinking about how this applies to winning new clients and getting new business

If you think about it most people will call at their comfort level which means they will be calling “influencers” rather than “decision-makers”. Furthermore whatever niche you are in again new business developers will target what they perceive to be easiest. The problem with this as Tim quite correctly points out is that the level of competition in these cases is huge because everyone else is doing this. I remember years ago when I was working for a software company, I discovered that “influencers” or managers in the middle of the hierachy of the companies, we were targetting could be really irritable or even rude when we called them. And quite rightly so because they were constantly bothered by cold calls. One day I said I am going to call the CEOs and one of the team said you can’t do that, you will upset them! Interestingly although they were the most difficult to get hold of, they were often very courteous and helpful and of course got me to the decision-maker!  So in the spirit of what Tim is saying go for the seemingly the most difficult or unrealistic targets and see how many calls they get. Alot of people will be too afraid to call them. If you are blocked by a very skillful PA -work with her and respect her role so she transforms from “a gate-keeper” to a “gate-opener”!