Andy Gole, founder of Urgency Based Selling® Have you ever started a business or opened a new market? If so, you may have faced the scenario that I faced when I started my first business. I was in the second year of selling decorative tins to food packers and my business was failing. I was losing money and then I discovered the one single account that would turn my business around, Bunte Candy. They bought a million of the type of decorative tin that I sold. I called on Bunte Candy with a special offering but unfortunately, the buyer said, "I'm good. We'd been buying from General Can for five years and we're happy." I left dejectedly. The year continued to get worse and worse and in the summer, my car failed. At a critical moment, when I was in an emotional free-fall, when I felt like George Bailey at the bridge in It's a Wonderful Life, I asked myself this critical question, "Who's the real decision maker here?" It's not Bunte Candy. It's their customer, the retailer. With my last marketing money, I put together an offering of special art and I reached out to 400 retailers to the food buyers and I was lucky because although Bunte Candy had no interest in my special offer, there was one retailer who did care. Walmart and that retailer instructed Bunte for them to bring me with them to Bentonville and my business turned around and took off from that point. There are two takeaways from this story. The first one is bold vision, bold behavior. The bold vision was the special artwork offering. The bold behavior was going around Bunte to the ultimate decision maker, Walmart. The second takeaway was the do or die attitude. I had to have a do or die attitude to survive that scenario and since that time, many years ago, I have maintained the do or die attitude in my mind. I always see myself at the edge of a cliff being pushed off by a bear. I have to fight back from that position. By seeing myself in that position, I prevent myself from being in an actual do or die scenario. That's my gift to you. Learn more about Andy Gole and Urgency Based Selling. 201-415-3447 http://www.urgencybasedselling.net/about-ubs/ubs-story/ http://www.urgencybasedselling.net