In 1869 a Baptist minister gave a speech which has been hailed as one of the most important speeches of all time.
The speech was called ‘Acres Of Diamonds’ and the speaker was Russell Conwell.
It was such a breakthrough for so many people that before his death in 1925 …
It’s because the Acres of Diamonds speech teaches a mightily profound lesson.
Let me share that lesson with you:
A man wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property, left his family and went off to search the world for them.
He searched far and wide. But despite his efforts, his fortune dwindled away and his health failed him. Dejected, broke and in poor health he threw himself into the sea.
Meanwhile the new owners of his property saw a sparkling stone in the stream that cut through his land. They dug it up, and were amazed to find it was a diamond!
It turns out that the very treasure he longed for was right under his nose all along.
The big lesson for business owners is we don’t need to go searching far and wide for wealth. What we’re looking for is almost certainly already under our noses.
I think of Acres of Diamonds every time I see people rushing off to implement some new way of getting more clients.
Just like in the Acres of Diamonds story, you’re closer to what you want than you might imagine.
You can get clients almost immediately by making an offer to your existing clients to entice them to come back.
You can simply call them and see how they’re going.
And you can go back to anyone who enquired about buying from you and didn’t go ahead.
How about this for an even better idea?
Come up with new things to sell to your existing clients. New products, different services, you name it. There must be other things they need and clearly they love the things you’re doing for them.
And none of these things needed you to add one more customer. Just get more out of the ones you’ve got.
Incidentally because Acres of Diamonds is such a profound lesson I suggest you read the whole story. It’s free and you can use Google to find it for you. It’s worth your time.