Summary: I can't tell you how many times people have told me that they need to bring in more clients before they can invest in either the training or the marketing that would allow them to bring in more clients. And while it's easy to immediately recognize the flawed catch-22 logic of this situation, I can tell you that those struggling with customer acquisition right now are often blind to this fact and paralyzed into inaction.<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about the Catch 22 of Inaction. Welcome Chris.<br> <br> Chris: Hi David! You know when you talk about this Catch 22 of Inaction, you're not really talking about people being lazy or unmotivated, are you? I mean they could be working hard, putting in a ton of hours and sometimes all that action just does not create what they want in terms of sales.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Need Help with This?<br> <br> <br> <a href="https://www.topsecrets.com/call/" class="button-style-2 button-style-2-green">Schedule a Call</a><br> <br> <br> David: And that's exactly what happens. And you're right, it's not about being lazy. It's not about being unmotivated and they could be working a lot. In fact, a lot of them are. They're doing a lot of things that maybe are not working the way that they'd like. So yeah, it's not necessarily inaction in the sense of not doing anything. It's inaction in the sense of the wrong action. They're taking the wrong action. So maybe we should call it the Catch 22 of Incorrect Action.<br> <br> Chris: Ooh, I like that.<br> <br> David: Maybe that would be a better description. But really what we're looking at is having conversations with people who are too afraid to move forward because they seem to be stuck with whatever it is that they're doing.<br> <br> Chris: So, talk about that. Talk a little bit about when a client says to you, “You know, I need to get clients for my business, but you know, I just can't afford to spend anything on training or advertising that would allow me to start attracting those people.” What do you say to them?<br> <br> David: I say, what are you talking about? No, I don't say that. That's what I think. That's my inner monologue.<br> <br> Chris: Are you kidding me?<br> <br> David: It's a catch 22 you can't see that? You don't see that? Seems so obvious, but it always seems obvious to us when we know. It's like if you were playing chess with Bobby Fischer or whoever the current chess champion of the world is, that person is going to immediately recognize things that you might not always see. And so many business people, they love what they're doing, they're great at what they're doing, but they're not necessarily great at attracting the customers who need what they sell. So, they don't quite know how to do that. And so, they're doing things, they're taking actions that they think are going to help, but that, in effect, don't help. So, what I actually tell them is I first try to point out the catch 22 and in a lot of cases that's not particularly effective. I say, “Well listen, in a sense you're saying it takes money to make money and I don't have any money, therefore I can't make money, but I'm in business anyway.” So you need to sort of see it for what it is. Some people do see it, and some convince themselves that they're completely powerless and they insist on waiting until things get better. And I've heard that from more people than you'd think, where it's like, well, I can't do anything right now. I just need to wait until things get better and things do not just normally get better, particularly when you're taking the same action. It's Einstein's definition of insanity,
