Sometimes You Lose...

Monday morning and something popped into my head. We always talk about winning, closing sales and growing our business, but sometimes we lose.

Sometimes we lose deals to competitors. No matter what we do there are going to be bad weeks, months, maybe even a bad year. There will be that moment when we lose.

Why did this pop up. Because the sports news and social media is filled with fans screaming that the officials screwed their team over. This weekend a bad call in the Lakers game made national news, and both Bengals fans and 49er fans are posting that their teams were jobbed by the officials. Now I agree Lebron was fouled, a whistle gave the Chiefs another chance... not sure how the officials cost the 49ers a game when they were blown out but I am not here to tell fans they were wrong.

What I am here to talk about today is what you don't hear anyone say. No athlete ever says "we won because the officials screwed up" and no fans seem to say that as well. Winning gracefully is important, but so is losing. I am fairly certain that over the course of the season calls balance out... sometimes your team gets them and sometimes they don't. For example, if the Chiefs had made the first down the whistle would have cost them that play and they would have had to replay the down.

Sometimes you lose a deal and sales people tend to defend the loss with claims that their competitors lied, cut their price or sold an inferior product. How often do they say "I was outsold by a better sales person"?

Losing is ok. The greatest in history lost a lot of games. Novak Djokovic has won 1043 matches as a pro, but he has lost 206. We cannot win every time, but we can benefit from losing. After a loss athletes study film of their opponent, they look for ways to improve and to win the next time.

We can as well. When you lose a sale you can..

• Use it as an opportunity to learn more about the competitor you lost to
• Ask the buyers for feedback on why they went with your competitor
• Improve your sales presentation, product or service
• Improve your marketing materials

But you can learn a lot and be better prepared for next time.

The key point is that losing is going to happen. It may feel bad, may ruin your day, but it is an opportunity that can help you improve. We learn more from losses than wins. Losing makes us want to get better and that motivation is what makes the great ones great... they did the work to get to that level in their careers. Losing is part of life and what really matters is what we do after a loss.

So sometimes we lose... onto the next presentation and win that one. Happy Mondsay.