فصل 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MASSIVE ACTION

TAKE MASSIVE ACTION

Most people incorrectly estimate the amount of effort it takes to get the results they want. When it comes to taking action, never think in terms of balance; always think in terms of massive amounts of action. Assume in the case of action that more is better and less is nothing. Whatever you think you need to do to get the job done, increase the amount far more than you think is necessary, and you’ll get results beyond your wildest expectations.

Never let the psychiatrist types convince you with their psychobabble and mumbo jumbo that you need “balance” in your life or that you should “stop pushing yourself” and “live in the moment.” This advice is promulgated by those who apparently want you to have a mediocre life, and they have no evidence to substantiate this advice as valuable. The more I work and accomplish, the better I feel. The less I do, the more tired I feel. When it comes to getting big results and becoming wildly successful, you have to take action in that direction in massive quantities. There’s no way around it.

I love action, and the more, the better! I love getting things done, and I bet you do, too! I love the satisfaction of accomplishing a task. I’m happiest when I’m producing and creating. I love working in my yard more than I like lying on my sofa.

If you want to get anyplace in life, you’ve got to take action. If you want to take a trip, you’ve got to fill the tank with fuel and then accelerate the car down the highway. If you want to build a house, you’ve got to pound nails and pour concrete. If you want to win the lottery, you’ve got to buy a ticket. To get results, you have to take action! The amount of success you have is limited by the amount of action you take. Stay away from the people who tell you to stop working so hard and suggest that you should relax and take it easy. You can take it easy once you make it. For now, take action, and take it in massive quantities.

I took massive action in my life and have done so until it became a way of life, a discipline. Am I a maniac? I certainly don’t think so, and I can tell you that I’m living a life that no one in my entire heritage has ever experienced. Do you think a man gets elected president of the United States without taking massive action to ensure he gets elected? Do you think Tiger Woods didn’t take massive action to become the greatest golfer in the world? Mr. Woods out-practices everyone in his field, and because of this dedication to massive action, he has reached levels that others never dreamed of. To become president in your field, you will have to be out of balance, totally focused, and dedicated, following up with tremendous amounts of action.

THE FOUR KINDS OF ACTION

You can never take enough action in life; you can only take too little. Too much action will never get you into trouble. In fact, taking action is the way to get out of trouble. The only time action will cause you trouble is when there isn’t any or when there’s not enough of it.

It’s been said that there are three kinds of action in life:

1. The right action

2. The wrong action

3. No action (which will always result in nothing)

And in my world there’s a fourth kind of action:

1. Massive action! That’s the one I live by!

The fourth kind of action, massive action, is by far the most successful tool I’ve had in my life. It has resulted in more success for me than anything else I’ve done. When someone asks me what one thing has made the most difference in my life, this is it—massive action. Even when I had no clue what I was doing, I went ahead and took massive action. If I wanted to get a loan on a piece of property, I always went to three or four lenders. When I bought a piece of property, I made bids on more than one property. When I throw a party, I invite lots of people and then repeat the invitations. When I’m done with invites, I get on the phone and I keep calling until I’m guaranteed a great party. I don’t like small parties. I like them big and noisy with lots of people. I’d rather have too many than too few. Once I had a party at my home and went through 2,500 plastic cups! Now that’s the sign of a real party! I didn’t even know half of the people who were there. You’ve heard the saying “Go big or go home”? I say “Go massive, not passive!” MASSIVE ACTION = NEW PROBLEMS

I watch salespeople make a few phone calls, send out a few pieces of mail, and then stop to take a coffee break and gossip about the latest news in the local paper. Then they sit down and chatter about how business is slow and how the phone and prospecting don’t get them results.

If you worked the phone the way I do, you’d know that the phone does not work; it’s the person on the phone who’s working. I never sit down to make one phone call. Never! When I sit down to use the phone, I do it with enough tenacity and with such massive quantity that I’m guaranteed to get something in return from my actions.

If it’s appointments you want, take massive action until your concern is no longer whether or not you’ll get enough appointments, but how you can possibly handle all of the appointments you have. The right amount of massive action should result in new problems.

One of my goals in my seminar business is to sell out the locations to the point that there aren’t enough chairs to seat the attendees. This goal always worries my sales guys because they don’t want the customers to get upset about not having a chair after they’ve paid $800 for a ticket. That’s a new and good problem to have! One of my salespeople protested that it wasn’t fair to the audience. I said, “Bring it on, ding-dong! You fill the place up to the point where people don’t have a place to sit and I’ll handle the fallout.” Never worry about the wrong things; if you do, you won’t ever get what you want. Doing too much will never fail you, but doing too little always will.

When it comes to action, go big, go bold, and then go more. This is the one thing that will guarantee results. Don’t deal in small numbers and small actions. Deal in large numbers and massive volumes of action. Go massive, not passive.

When I was a young salesperson, I was rough around the edges (my wife says I still am). But I never let that stop me from taking action. When you’re not perfect and polished, the only way to compensate is by taking lots of action. You’ll find that when you get enough volume going, you don’t have to be perfect. You’ll never become polished at this career if you’ve got only a handful of opportunities. The more action you take, the more business you’ll have, and the better you’ll get at your job.

If you’re unlucky enough to be one of those polished and professional types, you’ll still need to take massive action in order to get to the higher levels of production. I say “unlucky” because I’ve met many veteran salespeople who have been around for years and are very professional and know their business, but have an air about them that says they’re superior to others and don’t have to keep learning and changing and taking action. Wake up! It takes massive action, not polish, to get what you want in life! No one will pay you for what you know. They’ll pay you for what you do.

PRODUCTION YIELDS HAPPINESS

Most people don’t get enough in life only because they never do enough in life! Production makes people feel good. It almost doesn’t matter what you’re producing as long as you’re doing and producing something constructive. Decide to produce something and produce it in massive quantities, and you will win in life. Production results in happiness. This is a basic truth in every religious, economic, and ethnic group on this planet. People feel better when they are producing, and the more production they generate, the better they will feel. Money may not make people happy, but production will. In the words of Dr. Michael DeBakey, “Man was born to work hard.” In sales, massive action is the one single thing that will guarantee you increased success more than any other! If you want to guarantee X, take massive amounts of action that will achieve X in abundance. Your problem will no longer be how to achieve an abundance of X; rather, it will be how to manage the abundance of X.

Massive Action = New Problems. It’s at this point that you know you’re doing enough.

Throw a pebble in a pond and it creates ever-widening ripples. Pound the pond with mortar round after mortar round and then follow up with more mortar rounds, and you’ll create a massive lake. Everyone around will come to see what you’re doing.

By taking enough massive action, something will be changed, something will be created, and results will be attained. In the sales arena, massive action is like the stairway to heaven, where the sales gods will praise you with trophies, trips, rewards, and the guarantee of new levels of income! Your fellow salespeople, however, may praise you only with criticism, tell you that you’re working too hard, and give you free advice like “Slow down—smell the roses.” Disregard them and consider their suppressive comments to be a sign that you are on the right track. Just continue to add wood to your fire. All fire requires constant fuel, and success in sales requires more action.

Anyone who tells you that you’re working too hard is not working hard enough. Unfortunately, such people have given up their hope of having an extraordinary life. Such people are mediocre at best and have forgotten about the dreams they used to have. Take massive action until you get new problems, at which point you will get new levels of sales results. Don’t quit until you get new problems—problems like taxes, cars, homes, and where to go on vacation.

THE 10X RULE

If you want one thing, take massive action equal to at least ten times what you think it will take to ensure that you attain that one thing. If you do that, you won’t have to hope, wish, cross your fingers, or pray for what you want. What you want—and far more—will come to you when the right amount of action is created!

A salesperson once told me about the bad luck he’d been experiencing. His appointment canceled, a buyer backed out, another customer had to change his order, and so on. I told him that his problem wasn’t bad luck or misfortune; it was that he didn’t have enough in his pipeline. I suggested that if he took ten times more action than he had been doing, he would have no time to dwell on these so-called misfortunes and would have actually welcomed someone canceling out, as it would have been a relief rather than a misfortune.

If you take enough action and are getting results, then it’s no big deal when an appointment cancels or a buyer backs out. In fact, you’ll welcome the occasional cancellation since it’ll increase your ability to get to everyone on your lineup. But if you’re taking only small amounts of action, every time you lose a deal, all of your attention is diverted to the so-called misfortune and the loss because you don’t have anything to replace it with. You’ve put too much attention on too little. Put your attention on massive to ensure that you don’t become passive.

ACT LIKE A MADMAN

An associate of mine watched me call a client fifteen times in three days without the client ever returning my call. Was that too much? I don’t think so. When I want to get something done, I keep taking action until I get what I want. Never be reasonable when it comes to taking action. Just take more action. Be almost insane with how much action you take to get the job done.

A farmer should plant far more than he can possibly eat so that if a drought or famine occurs he can still take care of his family and his neighbors. A realtor who wants listings should call hundreds of people to get just one and will probably end up with many. If you want appointments, call every friend you have and every past client. Stop people on the streets if that’s what it takes. Be mad in how much action you take until it becomes a habit, a way of life, and normal for you. Once you are greatly successful, people will talk about how successful they always knew you would be, rather than how crazy you were. In no time, you’ll be overflowing with appointments, sales, and success.

Act like a madman when it comes to action and get completely unreasonable about what you think it will take to get the job done. Be without sanity or logic or reason when it comes to taking massive amounts of action and you’ll reach heights that others never dreamed possible. Massive action first equals new problems, but then will equal massive sales.