In Mattson’s book his first rule is that “you have to learn to fail, to win.” Mattson expresses that failure is inevitable and numerous especially in the field of sales. The perspective you take on this phenomenon is directly linked to your development as a salesperson. We are programmed to take failure hard and in a negative way, and this negative perspective on failing not only hurts us personally but limits our ability to learn from our mistakes. Mattson advises us to view our failures in a more positive manner in order to extract the lessons embedded in sales situation. In order to do this we must come to self-realization of the difference between the real-you vs. role-you. The real-you is defined by your sense of self worth and should be completely unscathed when a sale results in failure. Believing the real-you is what has failed is what causes us to feel so dejected when a sales attempt fails. Therefore, you must realize it is the role-you that has led to the failure which is defined by your performance in a role.
By realizing that it is your sales techniques that have led to a failed sales attempt, the feeling of personal dejection will lessen, and you will be able to view each sales failure as an opportunity to learn from mistakes that were made and to hone your sales skills. Mattson says that if there is a lesson to be learned from failure, “identify it and apply it to subsequent attempts. End of story!”. Further, upon adopting this positive attitude, you will begin to actually look forward to failures because you will realize the lessons learned from them will lead to future wins.
BoweryJE22
This is a great post! Understanding how to handle failure is one of the most important aspects of becoming a better salesperson and individual altogether. Like Mattson stated, it is key to identify the lesson to be learned from failure and apply that lesson to subsequent attempts.