Friday, March 29, 2013

The Timing for success....


Recently I met Ricky, a friend I haven't seen for the past 15 years. We had a long chat, catching up with lost time. Thirty years ago, when I first known him, he was only a young salesman. Today at age 65, he is a wealthy successful business man. He shared with me his success.

According to Ricky, three elements of life are important factors for one to do well. They are Time, Environment and Contacts. 30 years ago he got a job selling water tanks. The products were not wanted, and he found it so hard to sell. The Australian Company who employed him also terminated the distribution right to sell these water tanks. Ricky was asked to leave the job too. Few years later, he went to England to see the manufacturer for making these specialised water tanks. Out of his enthusiasm and effort, this company appointed him to be the sole distributor for selling their products in Malaysia. Upon coming home, he ganged him with few friends and began to promote this new venture again. Surprisingly sales caught up when there were many enquiries for water tanks then. At that time, our country was facing water shortages and water filtration was equally bad. Being that their products were specially made, they catered the needs of  our consumers. With his previous working experiences, he managed to appoint many of his old contacts to become wholesalers who supported him whole heartily. Today, his products sold by itself. 

Ricky made it with the three elements, striking at the right timing. Yes! They are Time, Environment and Contacts. 

I fully agreed with him too because thirty years ago when I first started to sell life insurance, nobody wanted to listen to me. I had to work like a dog before I could secure a sale. Today, everyone including small children could understand what is insurance. Today, I no longer need to promote my products and to market myself, my clients buy because they need them. You can consider Ricky and me as lucky, but we still claimed that it was The Time, Environment and Contacts that helped us to be successful.

Food for thought - “The person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” - Albert Einstein

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