“I never lose. I either win or learn.” This quote from Nelson Mandela gets a lot of airplay in a variety of settings, including sales. However, it may not be as good a fit in a sales context.
According to the world’s top performance coach, Justin Su’a, it’s not win or learn. It’s win or lose – learn from both.
Here’s some take aways from his conversation with Shane Parrish (all paraphrased and adapted for sales):
- It’s not win or learn – it’s win or lose.
- You can and should learn from both wins and losses.
- You need to own your losses.
- Did you get beat fair and square, e.g., you did your best, but your competitor was better?
- Or, did you lose because you took shortcuts, e.g., skimmed discovery, talked too much?
- Why did you win – did you get lucky, or was it stellar performance?
Here’s three questions to ask yourself with all deals?
- Win or lose – what did I learn?
- Win or lose – what went well?
- Win or lose – what will I do differently?
I hope this podcast recap helps!
If you’re not following Shane Parrish’s blog and podcast, I highly recommend it. (I have no affiliation – it’s just great content)