Ask For the Order
An old friend, a salesman by trade, used to say that in order to complete a sale you must always ask for the order. By that, he meant that no matter what else you do, no matter what skills you bring, if you don't ask a customer to buy he won't. I used to argue that customers would buy if they were presented with a good product by an honest salesman. I believed that doing the right thing was enough of a sales effort. I assumed that people would notice if I worked hard to provide a service at a favorable cost. I thought that working hard was sufficient marketing. It took a long time but I finally realized I was wrong and my friend was right. No matter how economic a product, no matter how good a product when compared to competing products, every product requires sales and marketing. Most customers, if not all, won't buy unless asked to in some way. The way can be subtle or direct but they must be asked.
It's the same in our personal lives. If we don't ask, we won't receive. People generally won't read our minds to learn what we want. If we don't ask, people will assume we don't want. We must ask for what we want. Now, it's certainly true that we can ask in a variety of ways. We can be straight-forward and ask directly. We can be indirect, such as enlisting a friend to ask for us. We can be subtle, indicating our wants with facial expressions, eye movement or body language. But we have to ask.
Unwillingness to ask creates problems. We create friction when we assume our unspoken requests are being ignored. We baffle those we deal with by indicating that they have failed to honor our requests and we hurt ourselves by letting our desires go unsatisfied.
I recognize that it's sometimes uncomfortable to ask for things. I'm a shy person who rarely want to interact with others so I understand that others don't want to expose their desires by making requests. But it's worthwhile to ask, at least once. You may be pleasantly surprised by the answer. And if not you'll know to look elsewhere or abandon the request altogether.
1-30-06
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