Never Waste Anything! Especially Failure!

I've always believed that, and a true soul mate and four great additional kids were my reward for acting on that belief.

There are any number of reasons for failure and, sadly, average performers repeat their particular failure "drivers" over and over throughout the course of their careers. This behavior pattern exists for any number of reasons as well: Get right back on the horse, pick youself up, dust yourself off and start all over again, are just two of the reasons. These are nice platitudes and history teaches that they can be crafted into nice ditties, but if you get right back on the horse without giving any thought to why you fell off, uh. you might fall off again?

I mean maybe you should have mounted from the other side, for instance.

"Good morning Mr. Jones, I'm Herman Timmer and I represent Nelson's Winter Wear. I'll be in your area next Monday and would like to visit with you. Is morning ok? Oh, you're booked between now an 2016? Bye"

--right back on!

So- "Good morning Mr. Smith, I'm Herman Timmer and I represent Nelson's Winter Wear. I'll be in your area next Monday and would like to visit with you. Is morning ok? Oh, OK. Thanks anyway. Yes, I'll try next year."

--pick your self up, dust yourself off...

"He's a born salesman" is a meritless cliche. I feel a little less strongly about "he's a born average, salesman," but no one says or implies that they mean that. One is no more a born uncommon and remarkable salesman than he is a born bull rider, nuclear physicist, or ballet dancer. Passion, learning and hard work are the only routes that make it happen, and what better way to learn than while sitting flat on your butt, with the wind kicked out of you and covered in dust from head to toe, wondering how that happened? And it's important also that you don't first get up, shower and change and then go to your study with a cup of cocoa. a legal pad and pens to think through what happened; rested, calm, cool and collected. No, sit there dirty and beaten and figure it out. Learn from the failure!

"Why did I call Smith and Jones?"
"Were they prospects that could really benefit from 'Nelson's' ?"
"Did I give them any reason to commit their time to me?"
"Did I give them enough of a reason?"
"Was I confident in my call, over-confident? Friendly, too friendly?"
" What should I do differently on the next call?
"Hey, I have an idea. What if I called Mr. Smith back and 'fess up that I'm disappointed with myself for the last call. That I called him because I really believe my line will be very productive for him and I want to help. Would he please reconsider giving me a few mintues. What if I did that?"

Who knows? We could try it though and perhaps learn something from the first failed call.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly,
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Available for corporate and individual consultation, training and speaking.
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz