Do It for the Stimulation!

According to popular keynote speaker, best-selling sales and service author, and President of Customersatisfaction.com, Dr. Gary S. Goodman, it pays to start saying yes to some of those invitations we''ve been so carefully avoiding.

You?ve just received your umteenth flyer or email about a trade association meeting or seminar, and they?re starting to all look alike. If you?re like most, you?ll file away the best looking pieces until the dates of the events have safely passed by. But are you missing out? Is there news of an urgent nature that you?ll regret not hearing if you don?t get to the Quarterly Society of Taxidermy mixer? Not likely. You?ll miss something even more important: the stimulation. Attending seminars and conferences and even networking meetings pays off, but not necessarily in the ways that we expect. By going, you?ll have to shift your routine, dent your ironclad calendar, and break loose from your everyday moorings.

And this, in itself, might stimulate your imagination, recharge your batteries, and even increase your self-esteem.

I did this ther other day. Instead of conducting my business with a client entirely by phone, I decided to hop a commuter flight and visit in person.

Technically, I didn''t accomplish much more by way of building my business than I would have done through remote control. But I made the effort, spent some dough, became big as life, checked out his premises, first hand, and I left with at least a half dozen new ideas.

I couldn''t have learned more if I had attended a one-day seminar at twice the price.

Keep in mind the saying: ?If you always do what you?ve always done, you?ll always get what you?ve always gotten!?

So, the next time you?re invited to something, find a way to say yes.

You have no idea how many things you?ll get out of it, until you go!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman ? 2006

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of www.Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone? and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC''s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at [phone] or at: [e-mail].