Eat the Frog!

Recently, I heard a funny story of a woman who died and went to heaven.  When she arrived at the pearly gates, St. Peter was there to greet her.  She said, "Is this really heaven and do I get in?"  Upon which St. Peter replied, "Yes it is, and your entry is dependent on your ability to spell one work correctly."  The woman asked, "What word?"  "You can choose any word; you decide." replied St. Peter.  So, she thought about it for a few seconds and said, "Love, and it's spelled L-O-V-E."  St. Peter smiled and said, "That's correct.  You an enter Heaven.  However, you must now take my place and do the same thing for the next person to come to heaven.  Then, pass the gatekeeper job onto them."

 As the woman waited, lo and behold, along came her ex-husband.  When she saw him she said, "What happened to you?"  He said, "I had a heart attack.  Is this heaven and do I get in?"  Upon which she said, "Only if you can spell one word correctly."  "What's the word?"  He asked.  She paused for a long moment and said, "Czechoslovakia!"

Well, that's kind of how life is.  It's the difficult things we do, like spelling, that give us the big rewards.  However, for man of us, the most difficult things to do are usually the things we put off doing the most.

Consider this example: People often set a goal to lose weight, but when the alarm sounds at 6am on the following day, it's just too hard to get out of bed and get to the gym.  It's too easy to put it off until tomorrow.  We naturally procrastinate doing the difficult things.  But if we can rise up and get to the gym each day, our weight loss goal is likely to happen.

Mark Twain said, "Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."  Imagine going to your pantry in the morning to find food for the day.  There you see several options.  However, at the end of the shelf is a live frog.  You know you have to eventually eat it, but it's not appetizing at all!  So, you put it off and off.  Well that's exactly how thing never get done.

In the book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy talks about doing the most important activity in our business each day first.  He says when we "train ourselves, through repetition and practice, to overcome procrastination and get our most important tasks done," we will succeed.

With Work At Home United, we can "eat the frog."

We have Seven Critical Business-Building Activities.  They are:

1. Keep Building Your Contact List
2. Set Appointments
3. Make Presentations
4. Hold 48-Hour Follow-Up Meetings
5. Celebrate Success
6. Always Be Involved with Fast Track
7. Lead By Example

If you were to ask me, I'd much rather make a presentation or celebrate success than set appointments.  But we have to eat the frog!  That means we need to work our contact list and set appointments each day and prioritize them ahead of the other critical activities.

Imagine if you "ate the frog" each day before you did any other activity.  Imagine if everyone on your team was working their contact list and setting appointments every day.   Your business would consistently grow each month.

Frank has invited everyone to make one contact for an appointment every day.  These contacts are not emails.  They're done in person or over the phone.  Now, making one contact a day doesn't mean every day we're successful at setting an appointment.  Once in a while, we will get a "no."  Regardless, each day we'll be making a contact leading to an appointment.

On some days, you'll do more than one contact or set more than one appointment, but the goal is to do at least one contact daily.

Most of all, commit to one contact for an appointment each day.  If you'll do this and "eat the frog" daily, you'll have an endless number of customers coming in to your business!

Written By:  McKay Christensen