Yes, I am going to tackle this topic: FAILURE

Have you ever experienced failure after the salesperson handed a project off to production? Has there been a deficiency between what was promised and what was delivered? This is an age-old dilemma. As a project manager, I will never forget the first time I said to my client: “The salesperson promised you WHAT?” Let me cover a few encouraging points when it comes to this taboo subject.

Don’t tell anyone, but there is no such thing as letting go. As a salesperson, you are in charge of the relationship and if you want to cultivate any loyalty, stay in touch with the partner. Now why do I say, “don’t tell anyone?” Well, you can’t be perceived by operations as meddling or getting involved in production. You must “truly” trust the team delivering the goods. We have all heard, “Too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth.” Just tickle your client with encouragement and updates during the delivery process. Remember you are in a marathon to convert a client into a partner. Never disappear.

You have another partner, and you can’t forget about them

This partner is more important than the one you sold the widget. They are your internal production team. You can never sour your relationship with production or operations. Once you are seen as the internal enemy, you are a crippled salesperson. There was a time I recruited IT consultants. I had a choice of delivering one-off temp consultant or finding full-time (bench) consultant. Overall, sales was reluctant to recruit bench consultants because the internal accounting department was difficult or unfriendly. Sometimes, accounting forgot to pay the bench consultants. Simply put, accounting was prone to disasters. I quickly discovered how to solve this issue. Just be friendly to accounting. I would always start a call with “how is your day?” Then move into talking about their family or pick up the last personal chat. Last, would I address why I was calling: “Carla (my bench consultant) did not get her paycheck today.” This was a big problem, right? Did I pick up the phone and start blasting away at the issue? No, I put myself in the shoes of the other person and addressed them with kindness and warmth. Remember your most important proponent in business is your internal production and operation resources.

Do not point fingers in the delivery process

Take “Extreme Ownership.” Jocko Wilnick dedicated a book to this subject. But how do you take ownership when it’s not your fault? When you are taking extreme ownership, it does not matter whose fault is it. You own it! When your production team does not deliver, you need to ask: “What mistake did ‘I’ make that ‘our’ production team dropped the ball?” From a leadership perspective, how do you escalate production issues to the other side of the fence? How do you go blasting away to get the problem fixed? You do it by taking extreme ownership. Instead of pointing the finger at “Bob” in production for skipping step three and jumping to step four, take ownership. Tell Bob’s leader ”I did not make Bob aware of step three and I will make sure the team knows about step 3 in the next project.” Own it…

Closely examine how you handed the project off to production.
How did you set the Production Team up for success?
Was your Partner prepared for the delivery phase?
Learn how to you stay in the know without meddling in the production?
Did you onboard your partner and involve your production team in that?
What training or expectations did you cement with your partner before kickoff?

Here are a couple videos that inspired me about failure:

Jocko Willink & Jordan Peterson Montage

Overall Business Advice

Please visit EvanTrickett.com for more Strategies & Tools to Cultivate Loyalty.

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