Grieving The Lost Sale

Losing a big sale or a series of small ones can have tremendous implications on the rest of your life. It could cost you major income. It could negatively affect your career advancement and even whether or not you keep your job. Ultimately your marriage could be affected, your children’s Christmas could be affected, and on it goes.

Consequently, losing a sale could initiate all the stages of the grief process including:

Shock
Denial
Bargaining
Anger
Sadness/Depression
Renewal

I know what it means to lose the biggest account in my territory. It feels like I have been kicked in the stomach by a championship martial artist. You may feel it in a different part of your body. Some people get migrane headaches. Regardless of where you feel it, these emotions can go on for weeks and affect future sales.

I recommend calling a good friend, trusted peer, or an understanding trainer or manager and talking about it. Don’t hold the emotions in. If you are a crier then cry. At the same time, do everything you can to start setting the stage for the next sale in the cycle. Publicly maintain your professionalism when communicating with the client. I have been with marketing reps that seem to find it helpful to go out and kick the tires on their car. That’s fine, but if possible, wait until you are out of the clients parking lot. Always express your desire to learn with the decision maker and use the information to get better. Feel it, assimilate the learning, let it go, and move on.

I think the best way to move on is to re-focus on serving your current clients. Then quickly re-focus on serving new ones. Learning how to lose and move through the emotion is part of learning how to be great in the world of selling. In fact, it’s part of learning how to be great in the world of anything.