In Sandler, one of the things we teach is why failure is a good thing. In fact, that's rule number one of our 49 rules. Sandler Rule #1 – You Have To Learn To Fail, To Win. But more than just learning to fail, you also have to learn how to succeed. Both should benefit you far beyond the actual event. So how can you do that?
It doesn't matter how big your failures and successes are. There are phenomenal lessons to learn in both of them.
It's fairly common for people to miss a big sale, and then realize they need help with their sales process. But what about all the little sales?
Typically, when you add up all the little ones, they've lost way more there than they did on the one big sale. But they weren't paying attention to all their failures, just the huge ones.
If you're not careful, you miss those opportunities, which end up leading to massive failures and lost business.
The key, then, is to learn a lesson.
Now, a lot of times when you dissect a failure, it's easy to find where it got derailed. It was this comment, this phrase, this specific interaction that led to everything falling apart. However, it's not always that simple to find in why something works.
So how can you find that out?
Simple. Just ask.
One of the powerful things that I do is ask my clients, "Why did you become a Sandler client?" When I ask that question, it's amazing what they'll share.
Frequently, I learn something that I hadn't even thought of. The same thing will probably happen to you when you talk to your clients. And if they're sharing something that was important to them, chances are pretty good that it's important to someone else you're not doing business with as well.
A lot of times I learn something that wasn't in my mind. And if it's a reason that somebody chose to do business with you, it might be a reason someone else would choose to do business with you.
Or course, you always want to dig a little into their initial answer and get them to clarify. They may say something like, "Well, you were the nicest."
"What does nicest mean?"
Or maybe they respond with, "You showed up."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we called four other people, and none of them showed up.
Whatever response they give initially, you have to dig. You typically have to ask several questions to clarify and go deeper, rather than stay on the surface reason.
Of course, it would be very easy to just send out a survey they can take online. But you know that not a huge percentage of people are going to reply to the survey. And even more importantly, you miss out on the opportunity to get the really valuable information, dig for what matters, and find out why.
