Ask, and you shall receive

This post will touch on personal development, without any intent of moving into the realm of Anthony Robbins or any other personal motivators.

I read the good book “The Aladdin factor” and I was immediately interested by the quote from W. Clement Stone: “If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask”.

This also connects to the biblical advice “Ask, and you shall receive”: which, to me, it means (among other things) that if I want something, I’d better start asking for it…

How does this connect to our marketing ideas? Well, I personally experienced several time how businesses lose potential revenue simply because they don’t ask for more sales.

For example: when we go to change the oil of the car or we get our lawn mowed, seldom we got offered a yearly subscription to the service

“Sir, I just finished to mow your lawn, as agreed. It’s cut at the desired length and it makes your yard look like a million bucks. It’s 35$.

Now, as in one month the grass will be high again, I can give you the opportunity to enroll in my subscription program: for the cost of 10 months, you get 12 monthly services to your yard, the day you decide. It’s only 350$, and you save 70$”

I did a very unscientific survey with some friends that just got their grass mowed by a neighborhood one-man company: if they were offered the deal, they would have taken it.

Think about that: just asking for more business (with a decent proposal, of course), it raises dramatically the chances of getting it.

What if your dentist offered you a yearly whitening service subscription? What if the carpet cleaner asked you if you were interested in a steam cleaning too? What if your dry cleaner asked you if you had shoes to repair?

Along this line, I admire this shop at the S. Jose airport, that eloquently ask for more business right there on the price sign:

So many opportunity untapped out there: as Einsten said in my previous post, “Imagination is more important than Knowledge” (link to post here)

Mau in Austin