Addition by Subtraction
“Welcome to sales, where the highs are high and the lows are low.”
Our Chief Revenue Officer told me this during my first week running our commercial group and boy was he right. Three months into this role, I have been absolutely on fire at certain points and completely demoralized in others. I’ve had to ask myself an array of questions within this short sprint at a new career and it is leaving me very … uncomfortable.
“Am I actually right for this job?”
“When am I going to get promoted?”
“Why is it so hard to get someone to buy a product I know they want?”
“How am I so good at this?”
“When am I going to get fired?”
Talk about a total mind f*ck.
In a growth company, targets are ambitious by design and when you stick an extremely motivated person in front of a target, they’ll live and die by the results. It’s like one, big pavlov’s dog experiment and I’m the dog (and I know it).
But enough about why sales is a complete juxtaposition of emotions and logic (and so fun, yet so maddening at the same time). I want to talk about perhaps the most formative experience I’ve had yet in this role - a strategic customer did not renew their contract. This news came this week and absolutely floored me. Despite a year’s worth of excellent deliverables and close tracking with our customer contact, today we received the bad news that they were going elsewhere. When I heard this, the wind sufficiently left my sails. My emotions are still raw at this point, but as I think through an action plan, I am compelled to rely on what I know has worked best in my career.
The following principles should become more apparent and real during times of duress than they are when the going is good.
Do not compromise on integrity. Enter a contract with class, leave it with class. Show the customer they’re willingly leaving a great company, person and ethical code of conduct. Who knows, this may be a reason to come back in the future.
Take a good, hard look at the man in the mirror. When a customer leaves a strategic relationship, this is not a split decision and there is more than likely a meticulous process behind their rationale. Ask yourself the hard questions - “Did I (my team) perform up to standard?”, “Is price competitive for today’s market reality?”, “Did we have the relationships we needed to within this account?” and so on. Chances are great that we did something wrong, now its on us to figure it out.
Customer silence is not a good thing. Throughout the year, it became easy to maintain perceived customer satisfaction because things were not on fire. This could have been a bi-product of apathy, disengagement or simply a hand in their game of poker. This is why NPS and other objective metrics (usage, quality escapes, on time delivery, sentiment analysis, etc.) are so important to track and evaluate ongoing. A good reminder that happy customers talk. Upset customers talk loud or shut up when they know they aren’t being heard (or they have emotionally moved on).
Hold people accountable, but do not blame. Everyone is trying their best. What this represents is a lack of tools, not a lack of effort. Our team stayed paranoid 24x7 about this contract and pushed hard to get answers, close plans and commitments. This was not for lack of diligence, but rather, for a lack of trendspotting. Sometimes the forest and the trees become interchangeable and in this case, there were not enough objective data points pointing towards termination. When you lose a contract it becomes easy to say it is “so and so’s fault.” Not here, not now. Blame will only pour gasoline onto a red-hot fire.
Remain a leader. When things get tense, the team needs a lieutenant. Someone needs to remain cool in the fox hole. They’re likely more confused than I am, so every cue I give will matter. They will ruminate over words, phrases and meetings I have with them. They’re human, remember that. Don’t exagerrate or get emotional, especially in public forums.
I titled this “addition by subtraction” not because I am happy to see a valued customer leave, but view this as a pivotal learning opportunity. My venture into sales was for a few reasons and primarily personal growth. My discomfort and careful evaluation of what to do when a large customer leaves is as invaluable as it is disappointing. This helps keeps it in perspective.
