"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they may have planned for you? Not much."

Turn Failure Into Success

Greetings!

The baseball College World Series is a big event here in Omaha, Nebraska. In this metro area of just under a million people, it's a huge party... like a smaller Super Bowl or Final Four... that lasts for nine straight days. All of the games are televised, either on ESPN, ESPN2, or CBS. Fans travel from all over the country, and the world. You can find me at one of the hundreds of pre- and post-game tailgates, or during the 14 games in my seat just a few rows up from just beyond third base. 

Fans here set attendance records almost every year, rooting for college teams from all over the country. But, for the first time in over 50 years of the Series, the homestate team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, qualified for the eight-team field. They played Friday night, and yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. As predicted, the stadium of over 24,000 fans was a sea of red (their team color). The noise was deafening at times. 

And they lost their first two games.

They were the first team eliminated from the tournament.

Dave Van Horn is the team's coach. He is just in his fourth year, taking over a baseball program that wasn't even good enough to qualify for its own LEAGUE tournament when he inherited it... a team whose players were embarrassed to wear "Nebraska Baseball" shirts around campus. 

Oh, and after not qualifying for that league tournament in his first year, they WON it the next three. Last year they were one win away from getting to the College World Series. This year they made it. 

Here's what Van Horn said after being eliminated yesterday:

"The fans were great. I know they're highly disappointed that we won't be around here for three, four or five games. But we got here, and we plan on being back again." 

"In retrospect, there are some things I would have done differently." 

"I'm already looking ahead to next year." 

Those are the types of things you hear from an achiever, a successful person who can take an isolated event and learn from it on the way to future successes. It's precisely what we need to do as salespeople.

TURN FAILURE INTO SUCCESS

The famous inventor, Charles Kettering suggested that we learn from failure. " ... it is not a disgrace to fail and that we must analyze every failure to find its cause. We must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world." Kettering had these suggestions for turning failure into success: 

- honestly face defeat; never fake success.
- exploit the failure; don't waste it. Learn all you can from it.
- never use failure as an excuse for not trying again.

TIPS FOR AVOIDING REJECTION AND TURNING FAILURE INTO SUCCESS ON YOUR TELEPHONE CALLS

1. Before every call, in addition to setting your Primary Objective (what you want them to DO as a result of this call), also set a Secondary Objective. That's something you can always accomplish, such as getting a piece of information, or simply asking for the sale or appointment.

2. After the call, ask, "What did I learn from this call?"

3. After the call, ask yourself, "What could I have done differently?" Or, "What will I do differently next time?"

I went to the mound to take out the struggling pitcher at my daughter's softball game. The girl said to me, "But Art, I struck this girl out last time. "That's good," I said, "...but this is still the same inning."

Now, THAT'S looking at the positive from her perspective.

Next week I'll have more on this very important topic, including tidbits from a fantastic book that one of you suggested to me, "Failing Forward," by John C. Maxwell. www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0785274308/businessbyphonec

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"People are known as much for the quality of their failures as the quality of the successes." Mark McCormack

CONTACT INFORMATION and REPRINT PERMISSION
Contact: Art Sobczak
President, Business By Phone Inc.
Editor and Publisher, TELEPHONE SELLING REPORT newsletter
13254 Stevens St.
Omaha, NE 68137
(402)895-9399
Fax (402)896-3353
Or, e-mail to arts@businessbyphone.com