Great works are performed not by strength
but by perseverance. —Samuel Johnson

All the biggest achievements of mankind have required perseverance that extended over decades. The Panama Canal, which lifts large freight-carrying boats over forty-eight miles of land between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, took thirty-four years to build. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is another great achievement. Joseph Strauss, the chief engineer who managed the building of the bridge, lobbied for more than ten years just to get political support to build it. Then, he worked another ten years building the structural support for the bridge.

Those are two of the biggest projects on earth. Your projects likely will not require decades of perseverance. However, projects always seem to take far longer than originally estimated and seem always to take a back seat to other priorities.

To succeed as a change agent, you must steadfastly pursue the change despite difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. After all, if it were easy, someone else would have already done it, right?

The dilemma is knowing when you should persevere, and when you should cut your losses and disqualify the opportunity. The best way to handle this dilemma is not to ask “if” the customer will change, but “when.”
 

When the customer changes, you want to be the salesperson who is present to receive the order. Consider yourself a gardener tending to a tomato patch, rather than a hunter searching for ready-to-eat food. Not all tomatoes ripen at the same time. So the gardener nurtures them through their various stages of maturity until each is ready to harvest.

Just as it would be mind-numbing to sit and watch a single tomato grow, you will go crazy, and become poor, waiting for a specific customer to change. So, fill your garden with as many opportunities as you can nurture at once.

Don’t stop looking for newer, better opportunities. As you identify better opportunities, you can prune the opportunities that seem to be rotting on the vine.

Keep in mind that your success ultimately depends on your ability to overcome difficulties and obstacles. A change agent with tremendous perseverance will be tremendously valuable to her customers.

Remain steadfast in your pursuit of creating value for the client. Nurture multiple opportunities. Always be looking for new opportunities.