What We Can, and Can't Control

The Lead - What We Can, and Can’t Control

This weekend I’m headed to Southern Pines, NC for my annual golf weekend. I’ll be joined by 15 friends for 3 days of 72 holes, and some mostly friendly competition. It’s a weekend I countdown to every year. At 36 years old, golf is my competitive outlet more than anything else. But I genuinely think it’s is a great analogy for so many things in business and life. If you aren’t golfer, stick with me. I think you’ll still take something away.

A common theme I try to instill with my clients, is that there are things we can and can’t control when it comes to sales. We deal with fellow humans who may or may not think and act rationally. While we can’t control the response or the decision someone makes, we do still have the ability to influence outcomes in our sales process.

One of the maddening aspects of playing golf, is that there are so many variables outside of your control. You can hit a great shot that ends up in a really negative spot. The wind kicks up at the wrong time, a bounce sends your ball to a terrible position, the ball lands in an uneven divot that makes your next shot near impossible. You get good breaks, you get bad ones. But you lack total control. The outcomes aren’t all in your hands. You can influence them, but even a perfect swing can leave you in a bad position.

The same is true of outcomes in our sales conversations. As I’ve coached sales people, I’ve heard all sorts of objections or hurdles a prospect has thrown out there. The sales person wants the perfect response that they can throw back which will cure all, and win the prospect over. The reality is, sometimes our ball lands in a bad spot even if we did everything right.

We deal with people who don’t think rationally, or have unrealistic expectations. Should we just throw our hands up in surrender? Should we fight hard to win them over? It can be easy to blame the prospect because “they just don’t get it”.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons things don’t go our way and that’s ok. It’s important to be honest with ourselves about what we could’ve done differently, without being too harsh. We tend to swing between the extremes. Taking an apathetic view of every deal you lose is a missed opportunity to learn something. Judging your performance harshly when you lose a deal is only going to lead to a negative mindset about your ability.

Let’s use an example I heard recently from a client. He lost a deal because the prospect decided to sell their home rather than rent it out. Here’s how I view a situation like that:

Can Control:

• Getting a better understanding of what the prospects goals are
• Putting the prospet at ease about what the experience of having a rental property would be like for them
• Walking through the benefits of real estate investing
• Better understanding their decision making criteria (what matters most)

Can’t Control:

• Prospect’s need for quick cash, like money for a down payment on the next house
• Prospect’s mortgage payment is too high, can’t afford negative cash flow on the property in their situation
• Prospect is risk averse and fears a tenant wrecking the house

In this situation, there’s plenty we could’ve done differently that potentially swings a decision in our direction. But you can also see that there are legitimate reasons that would’ve lead to the same outcome even if we had done everything right. Sometimes we don’t even get a response when we lose a deal, the prospect just disappears. While we may not have a clear reason, we can still examine the circumstances and try to understand what happened.

Something I think that can be helpful is an after-action review type exercise. Maybe it’s not something you do every time, but taking the time to step back and honestly consider what went well and what didn’t can reveal a lot. You can do this with yourself, or bring in a teammate to ask you some questions. Just list out, what were the things we could’ve done better that may have influenced a different outcome? What were the factors beyond our control?

In my experience, if you’re truly honest the “Can Control” list tends to be longer. The line items relating to discovery, and asking the right questions tend to be the majority. That’s something I can definitively say, we all need to get better at.

Somewhere along the way this weekend, I’m going to catch a bad break. I’ll hit a pretty good shot that lands somewhere it really didn’t deserve to end up. While it may seem unfair in the moment, I played a role in the outcome. Wallowing in self-pity won’t improve the situation, and it will almost certainly have a negative impact on what happens next.

Remember, the game is hard. If it was easy, everyone would want to play. Keep going.