A Winner Never Quits, A Quitter Never Wins

By Dave Fellman

     I grew up in a competitive culture. I have two brothers, and we were all athletic. We didn’t have toys, we had sporting goods — balls, bats, gloves, racquets and clubs. We competed against each other in sports, board games and even classroom success. (Fortunately, we never competed against each other for the same girl!)

      The sports culture is full of bromides, for example: A winner never quits, a quitter never wins. I was taught to persevere against the longest odds. That attitude has helped me in sales, but it has also hurt me. Looking back, I can see exactly where it did both of those things.

     This is really a conversation about time management. The things I would most like to do differently were situations where I put a lot of time into something that had a very low probability of success. Here’s one example. Back in my Moore Business Forms days, I hung in for more than a year with a buyer who told me that he bought all of his forms from his brother-in-law. He was happy enough to let me quote, but I never got any orders.

      I asked good probing questions. I learned that he regularly had quality and service issues with his brother-in-law’s company. I told him all about our quality control, our dedicated and experienced staff, our guarantee that the work would be done right or he would not have to pay for it. None of that had any effect.

       I finally quit on this prospect after running into him — and his wife — at a social event. She was not what I would call a pleasant person. He told her that I was trying to take her brother’s business. She said “That’s not going to happen,” and walked away. He smiled ruefully and said,” Now do you understand?”

      Maybe the most important lesson I’ve learned in selling is that you can’t sell to everyone. Family situations may be the hardest to beat, followed closely by situations where a branch office gets all of its printing from the main office. The branch may want to buy locally, but the office politics say otherwise.

       Again, this is a time management issue. You want to spend your time on “qualified” prospects, and as I’ve written in the past, that means three things. First, they have to want, need or buy exactly what you sell. Second, they have to want, need or buy enough of what you sell to make pursuing them worthwhile. Third, and maybe most importantly, they have to show some real interest in buying from you. The buyer with the brother-in-law failed that test. I should have realized that and disqualified him sooner.

Dave Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, Cary, NC, a sales and marketing consulting firm serving numerous segments of the graphic arts industry. Contact Dave by phone at 919-363-4068 or by e-mail at dmf@davefellman.com. Visit his website at www.davefellman.com.