I Was Too Embarrassed To Ask for Help

Written by on May 12, 2020 / Inside BS Podcast

This is day seven of the ten days of success and today we discuss asking for help. Years ago, when I first started my business, I was new to direct response marketing techniques. I was sitting around waiting for the phone to ring and I almost went broke.

Why?

Because I was too proud to ask for help.

When I was a young business leader, I worked for Marriott. I used to make sales calls and it was easy to get decision-makers on the phone. At one point, I received an interesting invitation. It was from a company that ran training seminars on sales and marketing. Here I was, just a “kid,” only twenty-something years old, but I thought I knew everything so I threw the letter away.

Many years later, I started my own business. After much trial and error, I realized that if I had attended that sales and marketing seminar, I would have shortened my learning curve by almost a decade.

My background had been in working with big businesses and I was used to reaching out to senior executives in Fortune 500 executives and having them accept invitations for meetings. They took the meetings because of the brand name company I represented. They didn’t know me or care about me.

Well, when I started my own consulting business, I thought it would be easy. I thought I could just pick up a phone and get a meeting with anyone I wanted.

I called the biggest companies in town and couldn’t get through to any decision-makers.

Then I read about direct-response marketing. It sounded great. So I started writing letters and mailing them to random executives. And I waited. And I waited. But the phone never rang.

After a while it became painfully obvious I didn’t know what I was doing. My phone was quiet and my bank account was running low.

But as a twenty-something kid, I was too embarrassed to admit I needed help learning this skill. Acquiring that knowledge though years of making mistakes – taking two steps forward and one step back, was painful, expensive and difficult.

How can you tell if you need help with something but are too embarrassed to ask? Answer these questions:

Has someone (anyone) done what you are trying to do?
Have other people achieved the goals you are attempting to attain?
Is there a formula or a recipe to the success you are looking to achieve?
Are other people in your role/industry/business/ successful?

If the answer to any of those questions is “YES” then you can and should ask for help.

Who can help you?

I receive this question all the time. People say to me: “Dave, I don’t know anyone who is willing and able to help me.”

That’s silly.

Look around. People are offering you assistance all the time. This message is an offer of assistance.

Here’s what happens: We get so close to our work and we are so wrapped up in our own lives, that we cannot see the opportunities that are right in front of us.

So here is your five step solution for finding assistance:

Step One: Find the person who has the success you’d like to achieve.

Step Two: Don’t envy them. Call them. Ask them if you can shadow them for a day or a week.

Step Three: Take notes. Write down what they do. Get inside their head. Uncover how they think.

Step Four: Model their behavior and thinking.

Step Five: Repeat over and over again.

If this sounds too complicated, just call me. This is what I do for my clients each day. I find the people in their industry who are successful and distill that process down and help them replicate it.

Working with me is a giant shortcut.

Don’t be too embarrassed to ask for help.

Call (786) 436-1986.