Unlucky in Sales
Sam was ashamed when he saw his numbers on the board. Everyone else had had a good week.
Mary who was always nice, pointed out Sam was unlucky not to get the White sale. That made Sam feel a bit better. Even though Mary wasn't the highest performer in the team she was great support. At least that's what Sam thought.
But what did the sales manager mean, there's no such thing as unlucky. What happened in the White deal couldn't have been avoided.
As everyone filed out of the sales meeting the sales manager stepped up beside Sam, so Sam asked him, "What do you mean there's no unlucky in sales?"
"We make our own luck, Sam" was his reply and he went on to explain
Sam had chosen to spend most of his week on the White sale. He'd chosen to neglect the small sales, he'd neglected to make enough prospecting calls and he'd chosen not to follow up on other opportunities. Within the White sale he'd missed a vital clue because he'd failed to ask the right questions early on in the sales process . He should have identified that one of the directors wives would have input into the decision.
In fact everything we do except the basics like eating and drinking, (even then we choose how much we eat) and keeping warm, is our choice. We chose whether we get up in the morning, go to work, talk to anybody. 99% of everything we do in our developed world is a choice.
We may not like the consequences of not getting up in the morning or not going to work but we still have a choice.
Then the sales manager asked the big question. "What are you going to do in the future having experienced the disappointment?”
What Sam could do is set standards for how;
- many prospecting calls he makes every week, irrespective of and big deals he’s working
- he reviews the prospects he’s working on every day to make sure each is moving through the sale process