Picture this: you’re on the sixth hole, walking on a golf course with a 10-pound bag, and the sweltering August sun is beating down your back. Wiping the sweat from your brow, you’ve scoured the fairway for a little white ball and finally reach the conclusion that, despite the 0.01% chance that your ball could still be on the fairway, it more than likely is sitting in the bottom of
the lake.
The best hope that you have is a triple-bogey on a par-3. Not ideal.
As an avid golfer throughout high school, I’ve learned many lessons on the golf course, but if there is one lesson that I’ve learned to embrace it’s that failure is okay. I must admit, this has always been a tough pill for me to swallow, especially as a self-designated perfectionist. However, learning that it is okay to fail has positive implications on everything in your life – especially in sales.
In one of our assigned class readings, Daniel Pink, author of “To Sell is Human,” discusses a concept called buoyancy: the ability to recover from a negative sales experience (“failure”) and eventually find success. To help us redefine our definition of failure, Pink discusses the “real you” vs. the “role you.” Pink talks about the importance of separating personal failure from professional failure, which is an important lesson for sales and beyond. In other words, you are not defined by failure.
If I were to measure my golfing ability by the number of times that I hit a golf ball into the water, woods, or sand, I would probably never pick up a golf club again. The same goes for selling. Not closing a deal has nothing to do with your intrinsic worth. By reframing the situation in a positive way, you are one step closer to achieving selling success.
testacr22
It is so important to learn how to fail. It is totally a tough pill to swallow as you say, and mastering the art of dealing with failure is a process for sure. It is very important to realize that the you that failed at something has nothing to do with how good of a person you are. If we as salesmen do not do master this separation of our “work selves” and our “true selves” we will be very unhappy people in the long run.
I think this post is so awesome. It is so important in sales and life in general to learn how to fail, and know that it is completely normal to fail. Failing gives you motivation and strength to get back up. I thought it was really cool how you showed that here in your post!