It’s been said that when a reporter asked Thomas Edison, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
Today I propose that in order to master the science of sales leadership you are going to have to embrace failure, or the act of taking 1,000 steps if you’d prefer.
The Perfection Expectation Fallacy
I worked for someone early in my career who expected perfection, in every thing each of us did… every… single… day.
It was at a specialty printing company. I can’t even remember what had happened, the owner we all worked for was ANGRY (enough to be literally red in the face) and brought everyone in the company together for a grand old bitch out session.
As we stood there being screamed at, he finished up by saying: if you went to a heart surgeon would you want the one who got all “A” or someone who just got by on “C” grades? and stormed out.
The silence was broken by one of the pressmen who said “did he really just compare printing to heart surgery?” A second one said “He doesn’t get that to even set a job up – you’re going to waste some paper not kill a patient.” and they all walked back to their presses shaking their heads.
Lynn’s Lessons: that incident, on that day taught me many things. The boss would probably be disappointed that all of it was from the press guys response and none of it from him.
#1 – you’re going to waste paper to get something right
When you’re setting up a printing job – to have everything line up, the colors perfect, the machine running: you have to use paper that ends up in the recycle bin to get the job looking right.
In sales that means asking questions and sounding stupid, being awkward, not getting the answer from the prospect or customer. It means losing deals, winning some that aren’t profitable, and missing goal.
All to eventually have things running the way you want.
#2 – perfection isn’t a reasonable expectation
“I haven’t failed — I’ve just found 10,000 that won’t work.” is another of Thomas Edison quotes I’ve always liked.
To be successful; we have to try new things, look for better ways, strive beyond our comfort zone. That also means we are going to find ways that won’t work.
As leaders you have to embrace the idea of celebrating those 10,000 ways that don’t work often. Start with praise before you move on to constructive corrections and ideas for improvement. Unsure how, here are a few examples:
- Great job getting out of your comfort zone.
- Awesome, now we know _______ isn’t a best practice.
- A little more practice will help your execution of ______.
- I’m glad you were brave enough to ask the customer _________.
The key as a leader is to know that to get better at any skill, including sales, takes failure to move forward.
You can also check out The Science of Sales from last week’s Chip off the Block newsletter; for more on experiment, process, and testing in sales.
For more on Thomas Edison and the light bulb check out On This Day: Thomas Edison Develops Incandescent Light Bulb.
Comments (0)