The most recent core concept in class has been about learning to fail to win. I remember being faced with this particular issue selling for Cutco. We as sales reps were by no means allowed to go door to door knocking or to cold call random numbers from the phone book as that could irritate people and potentially hurt the company’s name. What we were instead told to do is after a sales pitch with a customer, sales reps would politely ask if they could get the contact information of the customer’s friends and family that are in the Cutco target market. We called “getting recommendations” because the customer was recommending us to others. Thankfully, I had a good head start because a lot of my dad’s friend’s wives were big fans of Cutco and were very interested when they learned I was selling it (and when they also found out I was the only sales representative in our area). Making sales was not the issue, but getting the recommendations was. People would surprisingly let go of over $1,000 before they gave out their friend’s contact info. This was my greatest failure. It seemed like no matter how I altered how I asked, very rarely did I ever receive anyone else’s contact information. It took a long time and a lot of work to start getting consistent recommendations but it also took a lot of failing to achieve them. It was hard getting constantly rejected, but I went into each pitch with the mentality that this time I would leave with a new phone number of another potentially customer until finally it was. You never know when the big break is just one more customer away.
By Jack Henne
BoweryJE22 3 thoughts on “Learning to fail”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Is it really tough to overcome failure. No one necessarily likes being told no, but sometimes that no can lead to the best opportunity of your life. Just because the first ten customers said no does not mean the next one will too. It is all about keeping your head up and pushing forward. As you said, you never know what could happen if you just go to that next customer.
Jack, this is great! You took the initiative to change your tactics over time to accommodate to peoples pain points. Asking for people to send recommendations to you is clearly a pain point that you found. CutCo reached out to me asking me to be a sales rep for them and I said no because I saw this as a huge problem. I thought of how I would feel if someone asked me to give recommendations; I would feel like I’m throwing my friends and family under the buss. Good for you to have to courage to stick with it.
Your experience with Cutco demonstrates the importance of persistence and resilience in sales. While it can be difficult to receive rejection and failure, it’s important to keep trying and learning from each experience. Your willingness to alter your approach and maintain a positive mindset despite setbacks ultimately can be incredibly productive and useful. This is a valuable lesson for anyone in sales or business, as success often requires the ability to overcome obstacles and keep pushing forward. By embracing the core concept of “learning to fail to win”, we can turn failures into opportunities for growth and success.