Why You Should Want to Lose More Than You Win

  I was at a conference last year where they asked that "Your most embarassing moment" question.  I had a hard time thinking of one.  As they went around the room and one person after another regailed the group with stories that were good enough to leave us all in stitches, I just sat there.

My brain was spinning.  I just couldn’t think of anything that came even close to some of the gems that people were sharing.  Then I noticed something interesting.  The most successful people in the room not only had the best stories, but had enough embarassing moments to share for the session and some left over for dinner.

That’s not at all what I expected.  I thought for certain, that the most successful people were the ones that did it all right.  Yet, quite the opposite was true.

I learned that I was playing it too safe.  I wasn’t taking enough risk.  I wasn’t putting myself out there often enough to actually create an embarassing moment that I could learn from.  And who knows, some of those embarassing moments could have been opportunities.  But I’ll never know, because I didn’t take the risk.

If you stop and think about it, if you want to win, you have to experience a lot of loss along the way.

One of my first clients, Mr. Excel more than quadrupled his revenue in about two years.  Everyone wanted to know how we did it.  The answer is always the same.  We tried a lot of things.  And we failed at a lot of things, but the few things that were a hit, were really, really good.

When I ran direct mail campaigns, and sent out 5,000 mailing pieces and only 500 responded, you could say that I failed reaching 4,500 people.  But if the 500 I did reach responded and purchased $1,000 worth of services each, then my campaign wasn’t such a failure after all.

What are we really afraid of, rejection? Failure?  Not getting what we want?  One of my favorite prospecting motivators is to calculate the cost per rejection.  Let’s say that for every 100 conversations that you have 10 people say "yes" to your offer.  If each offer is worth $1000, then each of those 100 conversations is worth $100.  Each "no" brings you closer to a "yes."

Don’t be afraid.  Put yourself out there and lose to win.