Stop Playing Not to Lose, and Start Winning

These articles are part of my weekly Tuesday Tidbit religiously read by over 30,000 senior executives. Go to NoahFleming.com to make sure you’re on the list.

My kids are at the age where they’re starting to get into various team sports. They’re still young and having fun. Obviously, one of the proverbial lessons of growing up is that winning isn’t everything. 

It’s about having fun, right?

It should be fun, but that’s not always the case. Canadians won't soon forget the sight of the Canadian Women’s Olympic Hockey Team after being upset at the Olympics. Almost every girl on the team was inconsolable and shedding enough tears on the ice to keep the Zamboni at bay for days. One of the Canadian athletes caught a ton of flak for failing to wear her silver medal on the podium. The internet wasted no time labeling her a sore loser.

Everyone likes to win.

One of the fascinating things to watch as people, teams, and companies (yes, of course, I’m going to make this about business, don’t worry!) get more competitive, though, is that the pressure to keep winning manifests in different ways.

In very, very rare cases, we see those at the top of their games able to innovate while in the midst of intense competition, doing things that they’ve rarely practiced because they’re in the zone and it feels right.

More often, people revert to their training - the thousands of hours of preparation they’ve put in to get to this point kicking in, and we get to see if they worked hard enough, and prepared well enough to beat their competition.

Sometimes, we see people choke under pressure - they aren’t driven by the need to win, but rather the need to simply not lose. In these cases, the training may kick in, but they play much more conservatively and defensively.

Companies often have the same kinds of reactions to the pressures of competition that athletes do - some thrive, some gut it out, and some retreat from the pressure and simply try not to lose too badly.

Read the following scenario and consider your immediate response.

Suppose you’re the VP of Sales for a 50M+ company. Your numbers are in trouble, and you know you need help. You meet with a renowned sales expert, and through some discussions, you confirm that many of the things you worried were hindering performance, really were. (EG: your salespeople aren’t using the CRM you’ve spent a lot of money developing, and the rest of your tools are antiquated.)

The expert takes the time to learn about your challenges and desired outcomes. She shows you how to measure the effectiveness of the work she's suggesting and spends a lot of time discussing the impact, value, and ROI to your organization. It all makes a lot of intuitive sense, and you’re excited about what’s to come.

By the end of the discussion, you realize that there is a lot of room to optimize your sales performance, and you believe that if you and this expert worked together, there was an 80% chance you could generate an extra $3M - $5M in sales.

But here’s what happens next.

The expert delivers a proposal with options ranging from $300,000 to $450,000.

What’s your immediate reaction?

Are you sticker shocked, forgetting the fact that the expert offered genuine solutions and you both agreed to a demonstrable return on investment worth many multiples of those fees?

Do you see a $300,000 expense, or do you see an excellent opportunity to improve?

Do you immediately look for a way to do it for less money, or do it yourself?

People who play to win always consider the outcomes and ROI first, and invest in smart risks (a 75% chance to make at least an extra $3M-5M should be worth spending at least $750k on). 

People who are playing to lose always see a big expense, or look for ways to do it cheaper.

Here’s another example taking the opposite approach.

This week I received a newsletter from a friend of mine, Ian Murray. He’s a local insurance guy. Ian put together one of the most impressive client newsletters I’d ever seen. I read the thing from front to back, but then I noticed something interesting. Inside was a $25 gift card good for almost any restaurant in our town. The best part? No restrictions. No fine print. No “gotchas.” It was straight up $25 to use at a restaurant of your choice, or not.

Maybe I was a lucky one. Maybe I was chosen by Ian specifically. So I asked him about it. He told me he sent one to every single one of his (current/existing/past) clients – thousands of them! He said it was just his way of showing his appreciation to his clients. He also told me it wasn’t a cheap endeavor – not by a long shot.

What’s your immediate reaction to that scenario?

Do you see a waste of money or a huge expense for little return?

Could you even imagine doing something like to that with current clients, let alone past clients?

Or do you understand the true value of your clients? Do you understand that the potential word of mouth, or client retention, or the fact that people can’t stop talking about this as a simple way of justifying a considerable expense?

While most companies are trying to cut costs on things like 1-ply toilet paper, Ian is outspending his competition. Ian is playing to win. Initially, he may lose money, I mean he’s in the red on the initial spend, but he’s having a blast and is confident it will pay off.

Your Challenge For This Week:

Reach out to a renowned growth expert and see if there are ways to improve your sales efforts (and as a bonus, it likely won’t even cost you $350k!).

More generally - look at the opportunities you have to improve your sales, marketing, or customer service efforts, and ask yourself honestly - “Am I playing to win, or not to lose? If I was playing to win, would we be doing anything differently?”

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Noah is the author of the landmark books, Evergreen, The Customer Loyalty Loop, and the recently released Dealing with Difficult Customers. The books break new ground on customer loyalty, customer service, customer experience, and customer retention. Since 2005, Noah’s firm, Fleming Consulting & Co., has worked with clients around the globe to help them dramatically grow their businesses. Learn more about Noah here. Noah is also a LinkedIn Learning Instructor–view his courses here.