We had the big meeting scheduled with the CIO, who was flying in from San Jose to discuss the CRM refresh project. We had an initial engagement scoping out the implementation, and we made great progress after six weeks of effort. Now it was time to present our findings and get approval on moving forward with the project.
Already the meeting started strange. First, he is thirty minutes late, meaning we had to start with his team, who were already familiar with the plan we had laid out. Then he casually rolls in, without any apology and asks us if we can start from the top. As our Engagement Director starts, the CIO then asks why he is qualified for this effort. He then proceeds to ask all five of us our backgrounds.
Then we finally get back to the presentation of the implementation plan. It is clear that he is not paying attention because he keeps typing messages into his Blackberry. About three-quarters of the way in when we get to risk factors and assumptions, he then asks how we can assure that the project will not fail and what guarantees we would provide.
Our already harried Engagement Director explains again the risk factors slide and mitigation steps. The CIO interrupts and says that is not a guarantee. I lost it, glared at the CIO, and told him that no IT project is 100% guaranteed no matter how much you mitigate the risks. The room went silent for a moment, then the CIO said carry on. The rest of the meeting went without any further questions.
We did not get the implementation project. The work went to an existing vendor they worked with that was the “safe choice”. No matter that our plan was more sound and came in at less cost, the CIO was simply looking for a way to get his chosen provider in the door. My outburst gave him the excuse to make his choice without objection. He had egged me on.
There are plenty of mistakes I’ve made over the years. The email exchanges that turned into battles, the meetings that went sour, the demos that blew up, the customers that threatened lawsuits. I would like to say that I have seen it all, but I am sure there are more mistakes to come.
I do have regrets. I hold myself to high standards and the mistakes can eat at me, sometimes for days. I have to remind myself however that what is important is not the mistake, but what I have learned to improve myself to avoid repeating mistakes as future situations arise. I cannot change the past, I can only prepare for the future.
Some things that I have learned about mistakes might be helpful for you if you struggle with regrets or have a fear of making mistakes:
You are typically your own worst critic – We tend to overestimate how we experience our mistakes in proportion to how others view our mistakes. In most cases, other people hardly notice or care enough to be bothered.
Your reaction can be worse than the mistake – It is easy to go into panic mode and rush to correct a mistake haphazardly. Pause and think for a moment. Unless it is a nuclear reactor meltdown, rarely are our mistakes of the mission critical variety. Therefore avoid overreacting.
You cannot and should not avoid mistakes – If you try to avoid making errors or spend time removing all risk, you avoid making any progress. Optimize your decision making for learning and be comfortable with treating mistakes as badges of honor for taking calculated risks.
Your mistakes make your team better – Some companies weaponize mistakes and blame people for their screw ups. Do not be that culture. Encourage and foster a blame-free culture where people can share their mistakes so that everyone can level up their game.
You have the power to reverse decisions – As we say at Amazon, most decisions are two-way doors. If you try something and fail, we can revert or try a different approach. Rarely are we making decision that are of the one-way door variety where there is no point of return.
Your mind focuses on the negative so turn it towards the positive – When you make a mistake, the brain can obsess on it. Instead change your environment to do something completely different. It could be reading, running, cooking, calling a friend., whatever helps to get your mind off the negatives.
You want to memorialize your mistakes – This seems counter-intuitive and contrary to the last point, but I like to keep a “Mistakes Log”. It’s a document where I write out my mistakes and what I did to correct them, and in that way it acts as catharsis and it shows my growth over time.
We can and should feel comfortable in our mistakes. But trust me when I say that the joy in life is the journey we take as sales professionals to ride that wave, whether we catch the wave or not. Do it enough times, and you will have a wealth of successes to be proud of.
Speaking of mistakes, I have made plenty of them with our community here, the Enterprise Sales Forum. Much of what I learned I put into a book that I released called Community-in-a-Box. As I reexamined many of the choices I made with the Enterprise Sales Forum community, I felt it was time to make some changes as I shared last week.
The Enterprise Sales Forum events have begun on Clubhouse. The next one is happening later this afternoon at 5 PM ET Friday, then an International Women’s Day talk next week on Monday at 5 PM ET to celebrate Women in Sales. I am then hosting a talk with Alexine Mudawar and Rajiv Nathan on the CEO perspective of sales. Then every Monday and Friday thereafter we will have speakers and topics that you care about. If you are not on Clubhouse and have an iOS device, I have invites to share to let you in. If you are on Clubhouse, follow me at STARTUPMARK.
The goal is to make this a real, global community of sales professionals that love B2B sales, want to level up skills, and learn from others. To that end, I am asking for folks here to help out to restart our chapters, from NYC to Toronto to Chicago to London to Singapore to everywhere around the globe. If you want to be part of helping establish this community and take on a role to lead our community, please do reach out to me directly at mark@esfsales.com and would be glad to chat.
Thanks again for reading as always, see you in the Clubhouse chats, and have an awesome weekend ahead!
Mark Birch, Founder of the Enterprise Sales Forum
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