The sales profession is highly consequential. Small errors can cascade into large problems. For example, if your sales cycle has four stages, and you operate at 90% max efficiency in each, your end result is 66% to quota (.9 to the 4th power). The same is true in the other direction, small advances can create massive opportunity. 110% efficiency in each of the four stages yields 146% to quota.
Walking this tightrope from sub-optimal to optimal requires moving from the known to the unknown. We have to try new things. Considering the consequentiality of the role, any normal person would find this highly uncomfortable, and when it doesn’t work, we are quick to retreat. However, there is a disciplined approach that is fairly simple to follow: curiosity before ideal state.
Our efforts will very rarely meet our standards initially - it’s why we are putting in effort in the first place! Our job as learners is to bring our efforts to a place where they match our standards while being able to find lessons in failure & discomfort. The best salespeople I have ever worked with consistently ask themselves the question - “what can I learn from this?”. They still make mistakes, but rarely the same ones twice. Reprogramming your mindset to embrace challenge in this way, pointing towards education and away from emotion, will help remove the fear of trying something new.
Having a pitch go south is not a good feeling, it never will be. The curious person turns the bad feeling into a lesson, creates their own path, and climbs the ladder consistently.
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