Surrounded by Rattlesnakes. What Now?!

Greetings from the Methow Valley. North-Central Washington on the eastern slope of the North Cascades mountain range.

My office chair this morning is a comfy Adirondack on the back porch, facing south, overlooking the valley.

Hillsides covered with sagebrush and dotted with ponderosa pines fall below, infinite shades of green and gold lit up by the sunrise to my left. On the valley floor, Winthrop, an old-timey western town where the Chewuch and Methow rivers meet.

Rising above the town to the south — Gardner, Patterson, and other mountains in the North Cascades. And to the southwest, the jagged, snowy peaks of the Sawtooth Range — Hoodoo, Star, and Oval.

Closer to my office, a few hundred yards to my right, under a rocky outcrop on a south-facing cliff is the largest rattlesnake den in the state.

Between September and April, hundreds of rattlesnakes (no one has done an exact count), huddle in this den to escape the chill.

In May, just in time for my arrival in the valley, the snakes leave their den and fan out — within a mile or so of their den — to find their warm-weather habitat.

So, here I sit…

…SURROUNDED BY RATTLESNAKES.

A more timid man than I might use that as an excuse to pack it in. Put the hiking boots back in the closet. Grab the remote. Hang out in the living room — just me and basic cable, in a snake-free zone.

But that’s not my plan. I’m gonna lace up my boots and go for a hike, straight into the heart of the rattlesnake habitat.

Here’s why: The snakes will signal me when they’re ready to strike. That’s what the rattle is for.

When a snake shakes that rattle, it’s saying, “Hit the road, Jack!”

That’s the thing with rattlesnakes…

…and most kinds of trouble:

If you know the signals, you can avoid the trouble.

So it goes with venomous reptiles. So it goes with business.

Your prospects and clients rattle, too. They just do it quietly.

A subscriber who used to open every email now opens none.

A prospect who clicked three links last month and zero this month.

A client who stops showing up to calls or whose replies get shorter and colder.

Those are rattles. Warnings. “Hit the road, Jack” — before they’ve even decided to leave.

Trouble is, you can’t hear them. Not one email at a time. Not in your head.

But your systems can. With the right technology, you can “score” your prospects’ and clients’ engagement levels and act when scores reach the “danger zone.”

But a score is just one rattle. There are others.

The right system flags the prospect who hasn’t opened a thing in 30 days. It notices the deal that’s been parked in the same pipeline stage for three weeks. It spots the client who used to log in every Monday… and hasn’t logged in all month.

And here’s the part that matters: it tells you the moment it happens — not three months later, when the contract’s already up and they’re “going in a different direction.”

Better yet, the right system doesn’t just warn you. It acts. A quiet subscriber drops into a re-engagement sequence. A cooling client triggers a personal check-in on your calendar. The rattle becomes a plan.

So I’ll lace up my boots and hike straight into rattlesnake country. Not because I’m fearless — but because I know the signals, and I know where the dens are.

Do the same in your business, and you don’t have to fear the snakes either.

I can help you with the strategy, tech, and implementation team to put those systems to work in your business. If you’d like to learn how, let’s talk. Click here to book a complimentary PLAN-to-PROSPER session.