strikeouts. Mickey Mantle had 536 home runs and 1,710 strikeouts. Its pretty easy to see the similarity between the home runs (making the sale) and the strikeouts (making the call).

LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Successful failure consists of two components:

1. Double-loop learning. Top performers use a learning technique called double-loop learning.4 They stand back from the failure and mentally review the situation. They analyze what they thought they were doing versus what they actually did, ask for and accept feedback, and then practice and redefine what they want to do the next time. They learn by relearning. In particular, top performers often ask others for help, input, and feedback about why they failed. Double-loop learning helps you improve by teaching you not to repeat mistakes.

Top performers spend considerable time reviewing and debriefing their sales calls in order not to repeat their mistakes. However, the time the consultant spends in reviewing and debriefing calls isnt the deciding factor between success and failure. The deciding factor tends to be the quality of feedback from the manager, coupled with the consultants desire not to make the same error again.5

2. Not giving up. There is no substitute for field sales experience. You cant learn how to sell by watching videos of inspirational sales leaders. How does a salesperson get experience and at the same time increase his or her chances for success? The answer is simple in theory, but hard in practice: You must simply get out and make the sales calls. You have to be up at bat.

KNOWING YOUR NUMBERS

When salespeople get over it and adopt the more positive philosophy that not all sales calls will be successful, they need to have a number in mind, a success percentage of calls that result in specific, agreed-upon actions between salesperson and client that they will need to achieve in order to meet or exceed their quotas. For example, what percentage of your sales calls do you target to result in an action step such as a proposal, a demonstration, an introduction of your boss, a study, and so forth?

Many Fortune 500 companies set activity targets for their salespeople. They expect their salespeople to make x number of sales calls per day or per week, to deliver y number of proposals, and so forth. These targets result from the belief that the more sales calls that someone makes, the more likely it is that a customer will stick an order in the salespersons pocket. This is probably true for trans-actional sales, but it isnt true for the consultative type of sales.

Only masochists like rejection. But top consultants recognize that it comes with the territory and that not everyone needs their products or services. They may even recommend someone who has better solutions.

ACTION POINTS

4 Keep learning and improving. Top salespeople never stop learning. And they pay special attention when things go wrong. The best learning experiences come from successful failure.

4 Set sales activity standards for the transactional sale. With transactional sales, results are about making a lot of sales calls, i.e., quantity. In other words, work hard.

4 Develop sales strategies for the consultative sale. Unlike the transac-tional or small sale, where sales activities drive performance results, in the more complex consultative sale, the driving factor tends to

be the development and execution of the correct sales strategies- i.e., quality before quantity. For example, if the customer is in the evaluation of options phase of the decision process, your strategy might be to identify how the customer ranks the decision criteria on a scale from crucial to incidental. Probing effectively for this ranking would be the way to execute this strategy.

SALES TRUTH 4: Giving up is failure.