Today I had my sales conversation in class with Dr. Sweet and got to experience the “hot seat” to its full potential. Professor Sweet prepared us throughout class with many different techniques on what questions to ask and how to dig deeper and find the true pain within an individual. The most successful salespeople, however, are the ones that learn to fail and in turn can win because of it. We had many guest speakers that came in to talk to our class and almost every single one said the times they learned the most about sales was when they failed because it allows for an individual to evaluate what went wrong and what to change for next time. A big thing to realize in sales is that just because you fail does not mean it should define you as a person or be something to hold yourself to a lower standard.
I forget the name of the one speaker we had come into our one class, but I remember him saying that he used to take the failed sales conversations he had and put them on the wall in his office. He used these failed attempts on his wall to constantly remind himself to work harder and become a better salesman because of the failure and mistakes made in the past. Today in class when I had my sales conversation, I definitely would say I was put on my heels by professor Sweet. However, after the conversation, we get constructive feedback on what we did good and bad on and what to fix for next time. In the moment, it sucks messing up or saying the wrong thing that puts you on your heels but it is an awesome opportunity to truly learn how to become a better salesperson.
BoweryJE22
I agree that failing in sales in no way means that you should hold yourself to lower standard. Learning from you mistakes is key to growth. Also, digging into pain might be one of the most important part of sales. If you don’t know the pain, you do not know what to sell.
Being able to roll with the punches and keep going is what makes a good salesman. Failure should be nothing more than motivation to keep going and to do better, not something to hold you back. The hot seat is a great, low-pressure opportunity to learn how to do so! Great work!
This is absolutely so true. Failure is so prevalent in sales, and if you let the apparent failure of your conversation to get you down, you will end up losing a lot of sleep over something you cannot change. Failure is an unavoidable part of sales.