EVERY DEAL IS A WIN… IF YOU THINK IT IS!

It has been said that golf is a “thinking man’s (or person’s) game.” The profession of Sales is the true thinking person’s game. Better, it is the “Renaissance Person’s” game. It requires the strategic perspective of a warrior or a sports coach, the relationship management of a diplomat, the bedside manner of a good doctor, the research of a scholar, and the dexterity of an acrobat. Day in and day out, all these traits and skills are pitted against other sales professionals in the courtroom of the prospect, so the sales professional must also be as good or better an advocate than his competition if he is to prevail.

Even the best sales professionals lose more deals than they win, though. The key is maintaining a perspective that every encounter, every project, every deal is a win, whatever the outcome. But how can this be so? First, if one prevails and receives and fulfills an order, supplying his solution to the prospect, in this instance nobody would question that this unequivocally constitutes a win.

The key is maintaining a perspective that every encounter, every project, every deal is a win, whatever the outcome.

What if one fails to get the order, however, and it goes to someone else? What if it goes to one’s arch enemy and nemesis, that competitor that, when the salesperson does lose the deal, is the one to which he loses most often? How can this be considered a win? In a word: lessons.

Deals are won down the road nurtured by the lessons of the losses today. Today’s losses are the seeds of tomorrow’s wins. This makes today’s loss a win in my book. Sales management may have a different perspective about it if these are the only kinds of wins I ever get, of course, but that is a topic for another day.

Another way of looking at every deal as a win requires genuine customer-centricity. Top sales professionals must cultivate a perspective that the fulfillment of the prospect’s needs is paramount, of even greater importance than winning the deal itself. After all, it is possible that they may choose an alternative. If the prospect is provided with a good solution by my competitor, then my wish for them is only the best of success. If, as happens, my competitor has managed to win without an optimal solution, or with a solution that was more expensive than it should have been, I still wish success for the prospect. That success may well entail them ultimately realizing that they have embraced a less than ideal solution, and perhaps they will return to me the next go round—and I will be here for them.

Finally, it can even be true that my wins—those that result in the order coming to me—are also wins for the competitors with which I did battle. I have caused them, if they are true professionals committed to excellence, to learn from their shortcomings and to up their game. Their loss can thus be a win for them. A rising tide lifts all boats in this game of Sales, and the customer—the most important party in the equation—wins by seeing ever-increasingly better performance from all those courting their business.

Today’s losses are the seeds of tomorrow’s wins.

Sales, the thinking person’s game, starts with perspective. Every deal is a win, regardless of the outcome. Taken this way, leveraging losses as lessons, the wins that a sales professional experiences will ever-increasingly take the form of an order in hand and a happy client. May the best salesperson win, and may that person be you! I know, regardless of the outcome, without fail, it will be me!