On Saturday, a customer of mine called me.

I was a little surprised! I thought, ‘I must be in trouble! I haven’t been able to get hold of her for 4 months and now she’s calling on a Saturday 7pm?!’

I used to see her every 1-2 months.

I gave her a quotation to respond to a massive request five months ago, after she went away for a business trip. Heard nothing from her ever since.

Came mid autumn festival. I said texted on Whatsapp. She replied!

I asked her whether she’s tried durian moon cake.

She sent me a picture of a Malaysian durian mooncake.

Good sign right? But nothing else after..

I consistently sent her emails of interesting news and updates. Still, nothing back.

After 2 months I decided to up my game.

I started calling her. Can’t get hold of her.

After the first few times, she picked up. She’d say, ‘I have an urgent call on the other end’. This happened 3 times for 3 weeks. Every time I called, I’d get ‘I’m in an urgent meeting, I will call you back.’ Of course, she never would.

What do we usually say to ourselves after rejections?

‘She’s not interested.’ Or worse, ‘she’s avoiding me’.

But my rational mind thought ‘if she wanted to avoid me, she wouldn’t have picked up, right? She would have blocked my Whatsapp, right?’

I let it die for a a month.

Then, I upped my game again. I apologised without knowing what for. Just in case. I might have

offended her somehow.

Nothing.

Then, I saw a post on Facebook about something that’d be interesting for her son.

I sent it to her.

3 hours later, she called! On a Saturday!

‘So sorry I’ve been snowed under!…’. She started babbling on about her other projects. She told me more than she needed to. She explained how she had to evaluate the prices of suppliers. I got a lot of intel from her without even needing to ask.

This experience shows me that we shouldn’t give up, even after we think we have tried enough.

Don’t give up after 3 times.

Don’t give up based on some imaginary reasons.

It also shows that we need to celebrate every success.

The ultimate goal may be to ‘cut a deal’.

But before any deal can be cut, a series of actions need to be carried out!

We need to build a good relationship, make the proposal, handle objections, maintain the relationship.

I saw this was a success, a client calling me on a Saturday! I was very happy to hear from her!

Celebrate every success.

Break down your goal into small bite-size actionable steps to track progress and keep motivation high!