I believe in persistence! I think it’s important in sales, but it’s also important in almost all other areas in life.
Three things are essential about persistence for it to work in your favor.
Recently I made an Etsy purchase of some fabric. This fabric was something special to me, and the story is an example of persistence.
I had been looking for this particular pattern for around 20 years. My boys were small, my youngest just a newborn, and I was trying to be a stay-at-home mom. I say trying because, in only a short time, I had gone from my significant goals being to hit my monthly sales targets to the many purposes of nurturing and loving the two tiny humans.
It was a challenge on many levels for me. One of the challenges included our financial situation. I had been the highest income earner in our home. I had done very little to plan for the move to stay at home mom. I was just overwhelmed with wanting to be there for the boys, and my husband and I decided we would work it out and make it happen. We did, and we are blessed, but it was not without a lot of sacrifices and tears.
I have always loved fabric and homemaking. My friend and I had traded some small fabric remnants. There was a small shop in town with remnants at an excellent price, maybe $5-$7 for a 1/2 yard piece.
It so happened I fell in love with this piece my friend had been so kind to trade with me. I loved it so much and felt sure there would be more in the little shop in town. I went I looked none to be found. I asked the kind lady in the shop if she expected any more to arrive? She said, “Honey, we never know what we are going to get.”
I had planned to use the fabric in my kitchen. So while I was waiting, I had the cabinet paint mixed to match. Meanwhile, every week I went back to the fabric store every time I had a chance and continued to search the stacks and stacks of folded remnants.
I decided to do a little research on the fabric. The investigation revealed the material was a brand sold to the trade only. I had to do a little more research to find out an interior designer would have to be the source for my fabric.
I called and got pricing. I can’t imagine what the person on the other end of the line must have thought of my questions. But finally, I had a price to purchase. It was, as I recall, over $200 per yard. I’ll be honest I had only ever paid a price in the range of 5-$7 and thought $10 or $15 was for the wealthy 🤦♀️.
This price was absolutely out of the question for many reasons. The per yard price was extreme for our budget, and there was a minimum yardage purchase required of 10 yards that put this must-have fabric in the thousands of dollars range. Then we are getting into what would have equaled six months of mortgage payments for my family.
I was disappointed but didn’t give up. I eventually repainted the cabinets and got another fabric for the kitchen window treatment.
We continued to live and enjoy life. I continued decorating and, yes, searching every remnant pile of fabric I came across.
We are now in our 4th house since that first one and are getting ready to move to our fifth. I’ve probably had 6 or 7 sets of kitchen window treatments. So I’m always searching for fabric.
Since I began my search, Google has become available, and many other sites have become my go-to eBay, the old faithful, and Etsy. So, ever so often, for 20 years, I’ve been putting in the brand and pattern name.
Finally, a few weeks ago, I put it in, nothing under pattern name, but I did a search brand only, and a stroll through the Etsy listing revealed the joy! There is a listing for 2.5 yards of the perfect color wave of my dearly desired fabric!
This 2.5 yards of fabric at the quoted price 20 years ago would have been about two weeks of our household income at the time. I got it now twenty years later for a grand total of $63, including shipping.
I patiently waited for it to arrive. I realized it’s a twenty-year-old piece of fabric. I somehow trusted it would still be beautiful shiny chintz with bright lemons 🍋 , and the blue vases would burst off the white background. My husband raised the concern will this look like it was something they decorated with twenty years ago.
I assured him, this is timeless! To be clear, it’s timeless to me. The quality is clear to me. It doesn’t matter what it looks like to others.
It arrived in more than a timely fashion in 4 days flat. I spread it out and admired the lemons, the green- green leaves, oranges 🍊 , and vases with blue detail.
Here are three takeaways to make persistence work for you.
1. You must stay committed to the chase. You must want to find what you are looking for or want to see the completed project. If I kind of liked the fabric, I would have lost interest. I would have forgotten to search. I would have overlooked the odd pattern name “orangery.” In Think and Grow Rich, the author Hill refers to it as “ a burning desire.”
2. You must not lose hope and make excuses. I could have said, “That is just too expensive.” or “It’s all gone, and there’s no use looking.
3. You must see it through. Complete the final steps once you find the path. Again this is another spot to drop the ball if I hadn’t completed the purchase or left it in the cart for later. If I had let my husband’s concerns create doubt in my judgment. Nope, I stood firm that if it’s both a quality item and something you love, you will always love it, and it will always work somewhere.
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