Our office received a call the other day from one of our new OOH client’s salespeople. This normally upbeat, optimistic person was clearly feeling a little “down in the dumps”. I asked, “How can I help? You sound like you might need a little cheering up.” They said that they had just been told by someone they perceived as being a solid prospect, someone they had a really good meeting with, that they had decided they simply weren’t interested in outdoor advertising. “I just don’t understand, our first meeting went so well,” he said.
Everyone stumbles. Even the most successful OOH salespeople or real estate developers in OOH have their share of bumps along the road. These setbacks can be seen either as defeats or as steppingstones. You might ask, “How could failure ever be seen as positive?” It becomes so when you treat each failure as a learning opportunity. Understanding what went wrong, what needs improvement, and what requires modification can greatly enhance your experience. We often encourage our new OOH clients, who are just starting to grasp new strategies and techniques that diverge significantly from their usual practices, to embrace failure. After all, failure, if perceived rightly, can fast-track your success! The key is to absorb the lessons that are inherently present in every setback and apply them to improve your selling tactics.
Consider this: viewing failure as a potential positive experience, a source of learning, gives you the courage to experiment, to step out of your comfort zone. We are all familiar with the saying, “There is no growth in the comfort zone”. Overcoming the fear of failure and stepping out of your comfort zone requires reframing failure as a learning experience and pondering, “What did I learn from this?” Accepting this notion intellectually may be easy, but emotionally accepting it is an entirely different ball game. To extract wisdom from your setbacks, you need to first understand the art of failing, and for that, you need to put it in the right perspective.
When you fail, YOU are not a failure. Instead, it was your plan, strategy, technique that failed. There is a difference between you as an individual, and you in the role you fill. The role you is defined by your performance in a role. Just because you may not be particularly skilled in a particular role it does not devalue your self-worth. It only means there is room for improvement. You will fail to book appointments; you’ll fail to close some prospects. Failure is not a reflection of who you are as a person, it’s merely an indication that there is room for improvement in those particular skills.
Embrace “role failures” without undermining your personal worth. Failure in a professional role doesn’t decrease your personal value – your self-worth remains unaffected! Recognize that failure is not a personal defeat but a steppingstone towards eventual success. When you can accept failure as an opportunity for growth and eagerly anticipate the lessons that these experiences will offer, you’ll set yourself on the path to future victories.
Need help with sales skills or coaching to take your out of home company to the next level. Learn more about OOH Sales Mastery at oohmastery.com or Contact Dan Nausley at dan.nausley@sandler.com, 423.702.5579.
Lisa & Dan Nausley of Sandler Chattanooga have developed the OOH Sales Mastery Program after more than a decade of training/coaching scores of OOH Operators across the country in sales, leadership, and executive coaching.
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