With the Academy Awards show airing last weekend, the timeliness of an article I read on achieving goals could not have been more appropriate. According to the research by Toronto University cited in the article, actors that win Academy Awards live an average of four years longer than those who don’t. The bottom line of the article was, if you achieve your goals you will live longer. That may be true, but what about all the setbacks along the way? If you don’t have the resiliency to bounce back from the failures you encounter on the road to success, you will never achieve your goals in the end.
In sales, even the reps who consistently achieve their goals have to be resilient. I don’t know many successful sales professionals with a 100% closing ratio. In order to reach your sales targets you have to be able to bounce back quickly from failure. In fact, many sales experts rank resiliency at, or near, the top of the list of essential traits found in top sales performers. Here are a few tips for overcoming the failures you encounter along the road to achieving your goals, as well as living longer according to Toronto University!
1) Focus on the wins and not the losses: Although it may seem a bit cliché, in baseball the greatest hitters in the game fail more often than they succeed. Cliché or not, you can make a pretty good living in Major League baseball if you fail seven out of ten times at the plate against big league pitching. That rate of failure means your batting average is .300 and you are among the games most elite hitters. In baseball, as in business, you can learn from your mistakes but you need to focus on refining what you do well when you WIN. Finding your perfect batting stance, finding your perfect swing, and then practicing hard to improve your strengths is what makes the difference in hitting. Metaphorically speaking the exact same thing is true in selling. Focus on improving what you do well when you win and let go of the losses. Don’t worry about how many times out of ten you fail, focus on improving how many times out of ten you succeed!
2) Develop a short memory- This one dove tails with the advice above, you need to quickly put the losses out of your mind in order to focus on winning the next opportunity. One of my favorite sales stories is about a door to door encyclopedia salesman that is traveling with a newly hired rep. They show up at their first appointment in a positive frame of mind only to be shot down. The scene repeats itself at the next three appointments almost exactly. One the way to the fifth appointment, finally unable to take it anymore, the new rep explodes at the veteran “How can you keep showing up at appointments, suffer through rejection after rejection, and then just hum happily on your way to the next appointment? Doesn’t this bother you at all?” The veteran smiled at the newcomer and said “Son, I know I am going to sell one out of every ten calls I make and now I am five calls closer to the deal!” Forget the losses and move on!
3) Develop a “sales buddy”- A great technique to help deal the losses and find new ways to win is to develop a “buddy” that is also in sales. My advice is to select a top performer from another industry so you don’t get sucked into any low yield gripe sessions so you can keep your calls focused on helping each other win more often and perform brief post mortems on the losses. This can be a great tool to help you improve your closing ratio as long as both parties stay positive and add at least as much as they take from the calls. My preference is to talk at least a couple of times a month and follow a mutually agreed to format so the calls stay crisp, informative, and on point.
I am not sure I believe that achieving your goals will necessarily help you to live longer but I certainly believe that every person I know who is successful has learned to bounce back from failure along the way. There is a wonderful quote that says “It isn’t important how many times you get knocked down but rather how many times you get up.” I think the quote was originally derived from the Chinese proverb “fall down seven, get up eight.” Regardless, the morale of the story is to be resilient, keep moving towards your goals and you will eventually achieve them.
Chuck Terry is the Executive Vice President and CSO of Carew International and is regular contributor to Carew’s blog – Executive Insights
Carew International is a leader in sales training and leadership development; specializing in comprehensive, proven training programs for sales, sales management and customer service excellence. For over 30 years, Carew has earned its reputation of delivering increased productivity and profitability to our valued clients world wide.
