Slipping Up Botched a sale? Learn from the error of your ways-dust yourself off and try again.
By Barry Farber
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In a perfect world, no one would ever make a mistake.Fortunately, though, most people are willing to forgive humanerror. I've certainly made my own share of them. I once wantedto send a gift to a customer at FedEx to thank him for hisbusiness. It was a nice gesture on my part-except I sent itto him by UPS. It was a careless error, but the client got a kickout of it, and sharing the joke actually strengthened ourrelationship.
Although there's no way to completely avoid making mistakes,here are three key methods of dealing with them:
1. Put your ego aside. Remember this: Confidence canknock down huge barriers, but humility opens doors. It's easyto get angry or frustrated when things don't go your way, andit's easy to stubbornly hold on to the idea that it'ssomeone else's fault things went wrong. But there's onlyone way to find out what the problem was-ask the customer.Listen to what he or she has to say. Then say, "Is that theonly thing that's stopping us from doing business together? IfI can do that for you, can we make an agreement?" You neverknow: There may still be time to save the sale.
2. Use a setback as a setup for future success. Let yourerrors be the motivation for making improvements the next timearound. When you don't make the sale, or when a deal fallsapart, don't let it bring you down. You've put in a lot oftime and effort-and if you don't learn from what wentwrong, all that time is wasted. There's a wonderful old moviecalled Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and one of the songs in thefilm contains a great line: "Up from the ashes grow the rosesof success." When you get burned on a deal, use the ashes asfertile ground to grow your next move. Mistakes are our greatestteachers. If we don't use them to fuel our passion to moveforward and make improvements for the next opportunity, thenwe've made the greatest mistake of all.
3. Take a proactive approach. Read everything you canabout your profession, your industry, your products and services.Find out what other companies like yours are doing to get business.Meet with people who have particular skills and talents and shareinformation with them. Keeping your mind fine-tuned sharpens youredge and helps you eliminate future mistakes.
In the end, remember: It's better to make a mistake than totake no action at all. Every mistake provides you with valuableinformation to make a better choice for your next move. Asplaywright George Bernard Shaw once said, "A life spent makingmistakes is more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
