Recently,
a lot of very burly men gathered in Northern California to put on tights and
very expensive shoes so they could prance, frolic, cavort, and make merry with
one another in an open field – and we called it Super Bowl 50. Unless you’ve been living on another planet
(or Bakersfield without cable), you’ve at least heard that Cam Newton didn’t
take the loss all that well and his post-game interview was less than . . . gracious. His behavior in that interview really got
tongues wagging, and a lot of criticism was heaped on Mr. Newton. He later released a statement as a response
to this criticism: “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser. . . . If I
offended anyone, that’s cool.”
From
everything I read, there wasn’t a single significant criticism about his
failure to apologize for the loss. No
one was expecting him to start writing checks to the fans to make up for the
fact the Panthers lost the game. The
criticism can be summed up in the short statement given by Newton’s head coach,
Ron Rivera, in which he said he wished the quarterback had “handled it
differently.” That’s all – and that’s
the lesson for all of us.
No
one LIKES to lose (unless you’re a member of Weight Watchers). We don’t wake up in the morning, look
ourselves in the mirror and say, “I can’t wait to have someone beat me at my
own game!” When we do lose, though – and
the fact of the matter is it’s going to happen every now and then – how we act
either inspires those around us (and even inspires ourselves) or causes people
to step away from us and choose another partner.
Have
you closed EVERY deal in which you’ve been involved? Has EVERY deal gone exactly the way you
anticipated with respect to your client’s wishes and the commissions
involved? I’m going to take a WILD guess
and say, probably not – there have been, maybe, two or three times when the
deal didn’t follow your plan to the letter.
When things have gone sideways on a transaction, did you go to your
client and say, “They beat us! I hate
losing! If I offended you, that’s cool”
– and then you just walked away? Of
course not!
I’m
going to go out on one more limb here and say that the likelihood of your
getting a referral from a past client is MUCH higher if the transaction you
completed involved problems – problems that you overcame – than if the
transaction went off without a hitch – one in which you “won”.
Cam’s
still young – he’s still a “beginner” in the NFL – so we’ll cut him some
slack. That reminds me of something I
read recently on the Internet (so it must be true): “Do you want to know the
difference between a master and a beginner?
The master has failed
more times than the beginner has even tried.” Be the master your clients deserve – don’t
just talk about it!
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