Six weeks ago, I shared with you the video and learnings from my daughter Bella’s excellent but ultimately finals-losing speech in her school speaking competition. Her twin brother, Noah, won the contest.
Today, I write to you about Bella again. My kids are my “why” so I find it easy to share stories about them — and more importantly, I’m constantly learning from them. Nearly every day, they teach me something important.
Their school calls it “This I Believe” — a brief philosophy statement for each student graduating from middle school. Unlike the speaking contest, this was not a competition. It was simply a chance for all 52 young teenagers in the 8th grade to talk very briefly (which itself is challenging) about the most important part of their worldview.
Near the very end of the 90-minute gathering of students and parents, our daughter Bella walked up to the podium without notes — the only student to do so — and spoke from her head. You can watch her one-minute-and-45-second statement here:
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I believe that human beings are not perfect, she began. For my whole life, I have tried to be perfect. I strived for perfection, not improvement.
First, I can report that Bella’s self-assessment is totally correct. If it wasn’t perfect, Bella wasn’t happy with it. It had to be flawless, without errors, or even soft spots. This was, of course, extremely unforgiving to herself, and was the cause of a significant amount of anxiety. It has been the major mindset challenge of her life.
Which is why Lisa and I are so incredibly proud of her: to turn the lessons from her greatest difficulty into the foundation of her worldview is a sign of huge awareness and growth.
In our profession of people who sell for a living, there are also many perfectionists. In my experience with tens of thousands of salespeople, managers, and executives, I’d estimate that easily more than half struggle with perfection. These salespeople believe that customers should say yes to every offer, every quote, and every proposal. If they do not get a yes every time, they believe they are failing.
As a result, these salespeople avoid the actions that can lead to these failures. They avoid the actions of selling!
So here is lesson #1 from Bella: we salespeople do not need to be perfect. We merely need to be helpful. We merely need to try to help our customers, and indeed, to use Bella’s words, to try to improve their situation.
After relating a story about struggling with her volleyball serve, Bella went on: Progress is coming to school knowing that I will make mistakes and be okay with it.
In our work, progress is knowing we will hear “no” a lot, and that’s not only okay but completely normal and expected. Why? Because we need every single one of those “no” answers to get to the yeses. All the no’s are prerequisites to the yeses. The most successful salespeople hear “no” the most!
Bella went on: Progress is stepping into my volleyball gym, understanding that I’m gonna shank a ball into the net, and that’s okay.
We will all make mistakes, but they’ll be honest, not intentionally hurtful. Your customers — with whom you have relationships and history — they know this. Mistakes happen. You’ll shank a sales call every now and then. So what? The next serve, and the next sale opportunity, are just around the corner.
Progress is being myself and knowing that I am trying my best, and that’s all I can do.
This is such a mature realization. Many years ago, an old business coach of mine would say repeatedly, “do your best and go home.” This was a difficult but incredibly helpful lesson to internalize for me relatively early in my career. It took me until I was about 30 years old to really understand this, and behave accordingly. Bella knows this at 14.
I have decided to leave perfection in my past because it’s already gotten me as far as it ever could.
So, do like Bella did: walk away from perfection, proudly, because it’s not easy to do. Give yourself grace here, because you deserve it. Because you’ve earned it. And because your customers deserve the tremendous help and value you have to offer them.
Would you like to change the mindset in your sales organization and add 15-30% annual predictable sales growth to your organization, as my clients do? If so, please call me at 847-459-6322 to discuss, or simply reply to this message.