Chunking

You go to someone you truly feel will have their lives changed by your wares. You pitch the big picture. You’re really pumped up.

But rather than inpsire, you daunt the prospect. The big picture is scary, too big, less a mere picture more a sky-filling tapestry. Consequently, they back away from you and your plan.

The delightfully named Dr Lion Shahab alerted me to ‘chunking’. A rolling news talking head, he was commenting on an upcoming initiative named ‘stoptober’. It’s a “mass-quit” event which aims to see smokers stop for the month of October.

Apparently, those that quit for 28 days are five-times more likely to stop for good.

Chunking suggests that if you break a possibly huge looking task down, your chances of success considerably improve. The analogy our Lion gave was in how to tackle climbing Mt Everest.

Well, can the same be true of prospects? I suspect so. If the horizon-placed pot of gold seems too tough a target, then break the journey down into chunks. What smaller steps can you get them walking to get there, bit by bit?