With perseverance and assertiveness to success: Be annoying & annoying!

They say you shouldn't be annoying. But that is wrong. In truth, usually the to Successwho is a nuisance to others. Because most of the time they give up!

Trust yourself and nerve!

Virgil once wrote: When in doubt, do not give priority to the wiser, but to the persistent. He will win in the long run. ”And it is said of Cato the Elder:“ Ceterum censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam. ”What does that mean to us?

Quite simply: What do you do if you have not yet achieved the success you would like to have in a certain matter? Give it a try: dare to persevere. Do not let up! Be a nuisance!

This superman's recipe for success is so simple that many managers don't understand it. I often ask them: »If you two Employees have that are absolutely comparable in terms of their performance - who still gets more salary?” The answer to that is simple. Do you know her? It reads: The one who negotiates with you more often and harder about his salary.

Why women earn less than men

The books on the subject (advertising)

This is logically and empirically well documented. And by the way one of the reasons why Women in a comparable position still less to earn than their male colleagues: on average, women have fewer and less intensive salary talks than men and are quicker to accept less satisfied. In short:

You are not persistent enough. Women of all countries: don't give up! Be annoying and get on your nerves - if you have to! If you know a recipe for success that is even simpler, I would be happy to invite you to coffee. You won't find any. This advice is so ridiculously and absurdly simplistic that it's Business is rarely heeded. Shouldn't we change that? Let's look at one such incredible story as an example:

Incredibly weak? Or just very communicative?

We had been going in circles in a marathon meeting for a whole morning: Ours Projects stuck. At most, the head of development could have helped. But he was tied up with other commitments all day. At some point around noon, a young manager from our team disappeared from the meeting. We thought he abseiled. Then he reappeared shortly before 16 p.m. – with the development manager in tow.

We were amazed: “How did you do it?” The youngster shrugged his shoulders: “I have the last four hours before his Office camped. I got on his nerves every time he went in or out.” The engineering manager grinned and said, “I don't really have a minute today! But if someone is as stubborn as your colleague... So what can I do for you?” I was speechless.

Most managers don't dare to be persistent

Discounts for your success (advertising)!

Because what the greenhorn had achieved was not just a surprising appointment. A priori it was actually an impossibility. The head of development is known for the fact that, as a meticulous engineer, he has never promised a single spontaneous appointment in 27 years. "He won't even go to the toilet if it's not in Outlook," his joke Developer. Unless someone gets on his nerves that much. Why had no one else from ours Team married? Why that one Boy Colleague? The answer is as simple as it is surprising:

Most managers don't dare to be persistent. This is a surprise indeed. Managers are believed to be tough, to walk over dead bodies. This may apply to some things, but very few risk becoming a nuisance to others - even if it serves the cause. As always, I lead by a bad example.

I wasn't annoying enough

At some point I toyed with the idea of ​​writing a book. As soon as I had expressed this wish out loud, there was a fair in my environment! Everyone was suddenly an expert in the field and poured me well-intentioned advice. I was grateful for everyone and obeyed them all. I studied books on book-writing by the kilo, filled out the exercise sheets at an authoring school - and after two years I hadn't published two lines. To do this, I followed around 200 expert advice. I suffered. I puzzled. I didn't get the funnel. Which is typical. Not just for me:

We prefer to follow expert tips that will get us nowhere than show perseverance and piss off the people who make the difference. Why do we trust so-called experts and don't just dare to be a nuisance to important decision-makers? Difficult question, simple answer: Because we don't dare! We don't dare to do what our common sense tells us to do. When I finally listened to my common sense (as the Austrian likes to say), it revealed to me that even 100 outlines would not lead to a single published book page. If I wanted to publish a book, I had to be a nuisance to someone. Obviously someone who publishes books.

Be annoying - but purposeful!

This conclusion leads to the first dare! Crucial to specify: Dare to be a nuisance especially to those who can do the most for you. And in my case they weren't experts or coaches for authors, but editors and publishers. If you were to tap your forehead now and ask how the cobbler could be so stupid not to think of it sooner, I would advise you to keep your finger in your pocket. Because this mix-up of the addressees is a universal management problem:

The fact that managers have so much to do and still have the feeling that they are not achieving enough is also because they get on the nerves of the wrong people. It is the same for all operational departments. But this mix-up has a particularly catastrophic effect on sales. Let's consider an example: Get on the nerves of the right one! When sales went down in the last economic crisis, some did Companys, the the Money still had loose advertising budgets. For example Max, sales manager of a service provider. He said to his key account managers: "Each of you gets 50.000 euros! Place ads in your business customers' print media!« How do you rate this measure?

Those who dare will be rewarded

Would you have done that too? Verena, one of the key accounters, did not follow the request. She dared. First, she dared to question her boss's offer (out of earshot, of course): "What's the point of ads?" And second, she dared to annoy some people. And the right people: theirs customers. She called a handful of them and asked why they asked so little for the services they had in the Crisis Costs would save. The customers replied: »We would like to take up these offers. But by the time we have negotiated the order with you, the market situation has already changed again. Your offer is simply not flexible enough.« So Verena made some service offers more flexible and made 5 percent more within three months in the middle of the crisis Turnover.

Her fellow advertisers didn't even get a black zero because they annoyed the wrong people. Verena's colleagues pissed off a lot of people: the ad managers they haggled with for discounts that made them lose their hearing and sight. They pissed Max off by complaining about the "far too high sales targets". They became a nuisance to one another with their whining. And they pissed Verena with their questions when her sales went up inexorably: "How do you do that? Do you sleep with the customers? ”The amateur is a nuisance to all sorts of people. Superman only annoys those who pave the direct path to success for him.

If the customer is not asked

Sales has made a religion out of disregard for this principle: they take care of everything there. Advertising campaigns worth millions, sales partners and dealers, sales strategies and new products – just not the customers. The product developers think so too: Just think how long it took for the apple spritzer to hit the market. The People have been mixing apple juice with mineral water for 30 years, until the ingenious product developers of the sleepy beverage manufacturers finally came up with the glorious Idea came to bottle this mixture right away. Why did this take so long? Because everyone can have a say in product development: the manager, the engineer, the chemist, the Seller? Only one not: the Customer!

Daniel Goeudevert once said that when he first started working for a French car dealer, the sales situation was just as precarious as it is today. What did Goeudevert and his colleagues do? They went from house to house in their city and asked the owners of old cars if they were interested in a new model. In short: They knocked directly on the door of their customers and possibly annoyed them. And what are car salespeople doing today? They send out beautiful brochures and place ads. They don't arouse any awareness because they don't get on anyone's nerves.

Scared of the rejection: You don't deserve the success

Why not? Because they're scared. scare the customer Anxiety before cancellation. Fear of being a nuisance to the right people. Which is understandable. And human. But that doesn't change anything: If you want to be successful, you have to be persistent. Lots of people can't do that, so they should take it to heart: Being persistent, even if you get annoying, is more common Opinions not an annoying vice, but a useful skill. If you are not persistent, you will not be taken seriously.

If you can't be a nuisance, you don't deserve success. That is actually logical. Nevertheless, quite a few board members do not dare to do it themselves. What you have to imagine: the parents invest a huge amount of money in their offspring so that they graduate from high school, then go to a good business school and then do the MBA - and then the boy or the girl can't even really get on their nerves afterwards when it counts. Why is that?

Nerve yourself to success

If not in any matter fast going forward enough, ask yourself: Is there perhaps a lack of perseverance? Who should I really piss off with this thing? The incredible thing about this recipe for success is not its monstrous triviality. What is amazing is how much its validity is ignored in business and in life in general.

When I tell this story, most of them reply: "But you can't!" Why not? “Because I do Executive I didn't understand the objection for a long time - until I realized: Most people confuse “being annoying” with “being cheeky”.

Annoying, not cheeky!

Have you got your extra pay raise this year? I know a lot of people who get one every year. Even and especially in times of economic crises. When I first heard this many years ago, I asked one of those lucky guys, “What? Do you have a salary interview every year? "He laughed and said:" Only one? As many as are necessary until the boss says yes! "

And suddenly you realize that things are not as simple, simple and banal as you may have suspected above. Rather, it is a skill that makes high demands. For example, you have to be able to differentiate: Anyone who wants to show perseverance should know and master the difference between "annoying" and "disrespectful".

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