A while back I was in Seattle with my favorite group of women and my favorite conference of the year. The Women Sales Pros gathers for a two-day learning extravaganza every fall and I always walk away dizzy with new ideas to implement and new insights to bring to my clients – as #LearnHarder is one of my mantras!
One of the sessions that struck me was about turning around failures and flops.
Our colleague, Gretchen Gordon, of Boost Sales Performance lead us through some thoughtful practices around how to move on from failures. My key takeaway from Gretchen’s session was this phrase she learned from her son’s college football coach. When a player missed a tackle or lost a game, he had them ask themselves,
“So What. Now What?”
Reflecting on what went wrong and doing a “Post Mortem” can be extremely helpful. As this quote, attributed to Nelson Mandela suggest, “I never lose. I either win or learn,” our mistakes are powerful learning tools.
But then what? Dwelling on mistakes, kicking yourself for what you should have done, lamenting lost sales or missed opportunities – the bigger the muck up, the longer it takes to get over it.
Letting your failures define you makes it harder to learn from them.
Resilient people do things differently. After a failure or a sales whiff, they say, “So what. Now what?” and look for how to be grateful for the lessons, forgive themselves for making mistakes, and create a plan to move forward using their strengths.
Next time you blow it – or, hey, make a monster sale – note how long it takes you to reboot and refocus.
Can you improve how quickly you move on and grow by thinking about how to be resilient?
- Say, “So what. Now what?”
- Take note of what you learned.
- Be grateful for the opportunities.
- Forgive yourself for messing up.
- Review your strengths.
- Make a plan to fix the problem, fill the gap, or take a different action.
Don’t wallow in what went wrong. Change it up and move forward faster with your new mantra and mindset!
Until next time, stop hoping, start SELLING!
-sks
