Eliminate 'Maybe'

No is great. Yes is even better. It’s the maybes that kill us.

My coworker said this while teaching her team about the best wording for a direct mail campaign insert.

"With prospecting, your goal is never to sell. Your goal is simply to get them to think, 'I want to know more.' A good headline's goal is simply to convince the prospect that it's worth their time to talk to you."

"What is the most valuable resource any of us have?" she continued. "Time! This might be too soon, but look at Lebron. He had all the money in the world, but he's dead now. Time is the only resource we can't renew, and we never know how much more of it we have."

"Wording is crucial here. You want to be specific about your value proposition so they can be specific with their 'yes' or 'no'. No is great. Yes is even better. It's the maybes that kill us."

That hit me hard. Currently, some big 'maybes' are wasting my time. Deep down, I know what the answers are going to be anyway. Why am I spending valuable time making pros and cons lists and overthinking things when my gut is already telling me the answer?

And furthermore, how many small, practically meaningless decisions do I squander time on every single day? Things like, 'what color of socks should I wear today' to 'what should I make for dinner' to 'what did so and so think of this thing I said?' Those things are 'maybes' too, taking away moments of time and energy that add up.

So here's to fewer maybes, and more YES and NO. Even when the NO hurts and even when the YES is hard. It's the best way to free up more precious time so we can spend it well.