THe Art of the LEGO® Principle

I grew up with Legos®. My kids are growing up with Legos®. You can make a billion things with Legos®. Most of us have only made a couple of thousand Lego® creations. Which lead me to an interesting discovery. . . Our house has a box of Legos®. Like most boxes of Legos® it has been sitting in the closet. My daughter wanted a Lego® set for Hanukah. My son and I went down to the Lego® store. While he was reviewing the toys for his sister, I saw that they have a new set of Legos® with US Coast Guard ships and helicopters. I called my dad who is a retired Coast Guard Pilot, and told him about my find. Why had I never thought to build a USCG helicopter out of Legos®? When my daughter opened her present, my son brought out his old Legos® creations and the two played happy . . . Hence: the Lego® Principle.
We all have a list of clients we targeting for sales. Some of the prospects we attack vigorously; others languish in our closets. Those that are languishing are just as viable, we just have forgotten all the billions of possibilities that those prospects provide. We are busy chasing the hot prospects.
A couple of years ago, “Information Security” was a hot topic. I couldn’t wait to call on prospects that needed information protection. There was one scandal or another on the news about major corporations with information leakage about their customers. This past summer, the news was all about the presidential election. No one was interested in Information Security. I had 100 prospects my client wanted me to track down for an introductory meeting. With every “It’s not on my top ten list.” and “we don’t have the money because of the economy.” I started to believe what my prospects were telling me. Then my client handed me four new prospect names. Suddenly, I had 104 prospects and the old prospects seemed new and fun, because I had four new prospects which were new and different. I got the creative spirit back. There were now a billion reasons to talk to prospects about Information Security. The prospects could hear the excitement in my voice. I got two new sales right off the bat. Not with the four new companies, but with two of the old prospects that were suddenly jazzed about talking about Information Security.
We all have a box of Legos® in our sales closet just waiting to be brought out. Dig through the prospects you haven’t called on in a year. Rediscover the billions of opportunities.