Learn From Others' Mistakes

Learn from others' mistakes.

Having to make them yourself is just too costly.

When I can watch someone else work through a tough stretch and learn from it, I don't have to live through the same pain to get the lesson.

The Pattern I Keep Seeing

I see this most in new reps. They walk in and build a solid system for business development, and for the first three to six months, they're disciplined about it. Then they land some wins. Now they're servicing new accounts and managing new deals, and the system that got them there starts slipping.

Before long, it's a good month, then a down month, which makes them uptight, so they hustle hard into another good month. Then it slips again. Watch that cycle long enough and the mistake is obvious: no consistent, time-based outreach program. They're not prospecting every month. Just when the pressure's back on.

I don't have to ride that rollercoaster myself to know where it leads. I can watch it happen to somebody else and take the lesson for free.

Borrow the Lesson, Skip the Pain

If I waited to learn this the hard way, it would cost me six, nine, maybe twelve months of up-and-down swings before it actually sank in. Instead, I got to watch someone else pay that price, and I got the shortcut.

That's the whole idea. It's not one good system for one good month. It's consistency month after month, year after year, that builds a long career.

Don't wait for your own bad months to teach you what someone else's already did.

Roy Waterhouse is the founder of Lean Sales Group, where he coaches salespeople on building trust and growing accounts.