Sandler Rule #1 doesn’t beat around the bush: You have to learn to fail, to win. As straight-forward as that sounds, there are a few different aspects of it.
Separate the role
The child state of your ego causes you to get emotionally attached to outcomes. Instead, you have to separate the role - what you do - from your identity - who you are.
Of course, that’s easier said than done! But if you don’t do it, you can really goof yourself up. You need to get out of your own way!
Failure is part of the process
There’s a famous quote attributed to Thomas Edison regarding the invention of the light bulb: “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”
In fact, what many call failure is actually an important part of the process.
Even on occasions when you think you were successful, you may reflect later and think of ways you could have done much better.
Learn a lesson
In every sales interaction, you should get a yes, get a no, or get a clear next step. But regardless of which of those happen, you need to learn a lesson.
Can you think of a time where you made the same mistake over and over again before you learned your lesson? Or maybe you still haven’t learned that lesson yet.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. The only true failure is failing to learn from your experience.
The key to learning a lesson is to debrief afterwards. Whether it’s with someone else or by yourself, look at the situation from the viewpoint of a remote, removed third party. How can you logically look at what happened and dissect it so you can get better at it?
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