Home  Spirit/Ethics Doing the footwork
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By Victoria Merriman
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"I feel like God just wants to see me take a few faltering baby steps in the right direction."
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, a wonderful book that provides a spiritual approach to increased creativity, describes a process she calls “doing the footwork .” The idea is that as long as you start taking steps toward your goals, however small, God will rush in to meet you and start paving the way with opportunities.
The interesting part is that the opportunities God creates are rarely the same things you were actually going after.
Last time I met with my business advisor we discussed ways I could generate new business. She suggested I make a list of companies that fall within our target market and start actively calling them up. Well, I am an introverted person by nature (you probably wouldn’t guess by talking to me) and the idea of cold-calling pretty much terrifies and appalls me. My thoughts flashed back to the time I tried to become a Cutco salesperson in college at a point when I was desperate for a summer job. I lasted 3 days.
The initial “making a list” part was easy. I spent a lot of time on that list. I re-ordered it several times, organized it into categories, and added some nice headings and bullet points. I took great pains with the line spacing and font formatting. It truly was a beautiful list. I was quite proud of it.
One day, I had a breakthrough: I mustered up the courage to actually “cold-email” one of the companies on the list.
The next week I stopped into a retail store from my list. I lurked around the store for a while, then finally approached the guys at the counter, asked who the owner was, and whether he might be interested in upgrading their rather pitiful website. One responded “Yes. . . if he knew what a website was, and why it’s useful.” I said, “Oh, is he. . . older?” The other guy responded. “No, he’s just an idiot.”
Suffice it to say, neither of these feeble attempts led to anything. . . but within a few days I got several promising referrals from other sources. One from a former client I hadn’t heard from in a while. One from a friend of a friend of a friend I’d met briefly at a party. One from a guy who had visited my business networking group once and had my card. A couple more from my employees. “Doing the footwork” had paid off after all. . . in a completely non-linear fashion.
But I’ve discovered that this notion of doing the footwork makes the thought of cold-calling much less frightening. Why? Because it takes all the pressure off. I don’t have to expect anything to come out of my own efforts. I feel like God just wants to see me take a few faltering baby steps in the right direction, and will then reward my attempts with all kinds of great opportunities that I could never have thought of myself.
Read more from this blogger at Spiritual Entrepreneurs.
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