A wise man once told me “The only alternative to perseverance is failure”

A wise man once told me “The only alternative to perseverance is failure”

Although we may know things, far too often we don’t do them.

So here’s something we do at my company UK Vending Ltd. We send out volumes of straightforward e-mails week after week after week.

Let me guess what you’re thinking. Is it something like this?

“Isn’t that far too often?” Or, “If you took your time and sent out a variety of more imaginative ones you’d do much better”.

Well, we do what we do for two reasons:

1. Because it works. And it works because we never know when prospects will buy, so we have to keep plugging away.

2. Because it’s better than doing nothing. In fact it is a lot better. Like many in business we are so busy, despite our careful planning, fighting fires each day and attending meetings (some more valuable than others) and all the other things successful business management requires that we would probably send out nothing if we weren’t careful about sticking to this not very imaginative plan.

We have all constantly met other business people who spend weeks, even months, squandering priceless days and weeks over small details that will make little or no difference – when they should just get on with it.

Things have not changed since Voltaire said a couple centuries ago: “The best is the enemy of the good”.

We communicate more than our competitors. Once we have a prospect we keep relentlessly at the prospect. For how long? Usually until they give in.

Hold on you say:” Isn’t that “pressure selling?” Think of it this way: we actually believe that we are really good at what we do. We love our business. We give excellent service. Our products are truly great and the prices eminently affordable. We want everyone to know about us and what we do. We want them to see just what we could do for them in solving their hot-drinks, water and day to day vending needs. We are always amazed, not just me but everyone in my company, when we can’t get someone to see the obvious: we are really, really good at what we do and we could benefit them. So when should stop telling them what we believe. We believe….  never.

We don’t sit around wasting hot air on whether something will work out; we just get on with it.

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.