YA WIN SOME- YA LEARN SOME

I'm constantly amazed at the timeliness of things I read or listen to.  Earlier this week I was listening to a John Maxwell CD about leadership.  He was talking about failure and how we can often learn from it.  John used the phrase You Win Some -You Lose Some, and he said successful people change that phrase to You Win Some- You Learn Some.  His point being that we should always look for a lesson to be learned from every defeat or failure, and if we learn something from it, we actually can turn a disappointment into a positive experience. 

This sounded pretty cool to me- I remember thinking I'll use this sometime in my coaching.  Little did I know then that I would get to apply it to myself very soon.  Here's my story.....

I met with a prospect recently about doing some coaching work.  The meeting went very well- I thought I clearly understood what the person wanted and needed so I proposed a solution with a price right on the spot.  I was sure I knew all I needed to know and now all I had to do was wait for them to say let's get started. 

My first clue that I was in trouble was when the person I was meeting with informed me that he didn't make these kinds of decisions- he had to talk to his boss.  I suspected right then that I had failed to get enough facts about who the decision maker really was, but I decided to let the process run its course and maybe I would be okay.  After a week went by and I had not heard from my prospect, I called him to see if he had any questions.  He politely informed me that his boss told him this was far too much money- they just didn't spend this kind of money on developing employees, and he had gone to the local university for a class that was going to be a lot shorter and a lot cheaper.  I then realized I had blown it because I didn't find out all I needed to find out about the prospect's budget.  I had lower priced things I could have offered that would have helped the prospect, but I saw how excited he was in our conversation and I assumed he would go for a larger investment.  WRONG!  Our conversation ended and as I hung up the phone I realized I had lost the business and it was my own fault. 

Then I remembered John Maxwell's line- You Win Some and You Learn Some.  I wanted to feel like I lost, but I decided to think about what I learned.  In this case I learned two things about the sales process:

1.  Make sure you know who your decision makers are when talking with a prospect.  That's who is going to buy from you- not necessarily the end user.

2.  Find out what kind of budget you have to work with.  There's no sense trying to sell something that costs more than your prospect has to spend. 

I knew both of the things- I have been taught these principles before, but obviously I failed to follow them in this case.  I know better now.  Yes, I lost the sale, but I learned that the sales process really does work if you follow it, but if you ignore some part of it, you probably will lose!

This week I learned some!