Great Salespeople Own Their Mistakes. This is How They Do It!

Becoming a Better Sales Rep — Post #22

Some Context to This Post.

Usually, it takes me some time to come up with a topic for a blog post. But, today was different. I knew what I’d write about in a heartbeat.

Earlier today, I was in an acting class, completely drawn into the moment. Out of emotion, I accidentally insulted someone. I felt terrible. It’s this when you say something you should’ve never said, the entire room turns silent, and all eyes are on you.

There’s no way to truly excuse my behavior. I feel terrible and feel sorry for the person.

But, this can serve as an important reminder:

1. We all make mistakes.
2. We’re responsible to make it right again.
3. To do so, we need to own our mistakes.

Photo by Varvara Grabova on Unsplash

Why Owning Your Mistakes as a Sales Professional Is Absolutely Crucial.

Nobody likes to talk about their own mistakes. Nobody likes hard feedback. Nobody wants to be put on the spot. But in the end, we need to face that we can’t go about our sales work without making one mistake or another down the road.

It’s human. As terrible as it might feel, it’s okay.

I recently went to an amazing talk of Photographer Platon and he shared a quote of Edward Snowden when he was meeting him in a hotel room in Moscow. Love him or hate him, but I think he was right saying that:

“The line between right and wrong is blurry and most of us cross it at some point in our lives. But what ulitmately decides if we’re good or bad people is how hard we try to get back on the right side of this blurry line.”

And part of coming back to the right side of the blurry line is to own your mistakes. There’s no way you’ll make things right when you try to hide your mistakes or act like you’re not responsible for them. Because, if you don’t…

1. You’ll Lose the Trust of Your Leads. Everything in sales is about trust and relationships. Even more so if you’re in B2B or enterprise sales. If that trust is ever broken, your clients won’t buy from you. Just think about it: would you rather work with somebody who owns their mistakes and makes sure to make up for them or someone who tries to cover them up? And, if it’s a mistake nobody noticed, people will find out sooner or later. Your leads aren’t stupid.
2. You’ll Put Your Co-Workers at Risk. If you make mistakes and don’t own them, chances are that your colleagues might be affected. If you make a mistake and forget to get a replacement part shipped to your client before your colleague from the maintenance department shows up at your client’s location, you’ll make them look stupid and you’ll waste your companies resources. As uncomfortable as it might feel, the best thing is to immediately notify people, own the mistake, and work on a solution.
3. You’ll Damage Your Company’s Reputation: If you continue thinking about #2, don’t forget that you’re the face of your company. As salespeople, we represent the company. Our clients don’t see the entire apparatus behind our product. They see us and they make judgments based on our behavior as salespeople.
4. You’ll Make the Same Mistakes Again and Again: You’ll deprive yourself of the chance to learn from your own mistakes and to learn how to avoid them in the future. Because, if you avoid owning your mistakes, you automatically avoid reflecting on them and finding solutions to never make those mistakes again.
5. You’ll Feel Terrible: And, just think about how you’ll feel. If you hide your mistakes, they’ll continue haunting you.

So, knowing why it’s so important to own your mistakes, let’s take a look at a few tactics great salespeople use to do so.

Photo by Yulia Matvienko on Unsplash

How to Own Your Mistakes

So, it’s good to know that something is important, but how do you actually make sure to own your mistakes? Let’s take a quick look at six tactics:

1. Always Put Honestry First: No matter what you do, don’t lie. Don’t cover things up. The truth always wins in the end. Your leads will appreciate an honest admittance of mistake over finding out that you lied to them. 100%!
2. Act: Take action to make your mistakes right. But, don’t just do something, make a plan. Figure out what to focus on and work on making things right. This includes owning up and potentially including the people who’re affected by your mistake in the decision-making process.
3. And, Act Immediately: The longer you wait with owning your mistakes, the higher the chances that the consequences will get worse. You can avoid most damage and all the things you‘re afraid of by acting immediately.
4. Seek Mentorship from People You Trust: Sometimes, it feels like we’ve done the worst thing imaginable and that there is no way out. But, chances are that the account executives at your company have made the same mistake at some point in their careers. They’re just not making those mistakes anymore because they learned from them. So, seeking (continuous) mentorship to think through your mistakes, can be super helpful. Even if they haven’t made the same mistake, just by looking at it from a detached or more experienced perspective, might enable them to see paths that you can’t see yourself.
5. Avoid Justifying: Most people, me including, immediately jump to justifications after making mistakes. Either towards themselves or towards others. “I only did this because…,” “I didn’t mean to do this. It just happened in the movement,” or “It wouldn’t have happened if…” are phrases that we all know and — most likely — most of us have used ourselves. It’s not about avoiding this behavior altogether, it’s about catching yourself once you realize you’re falling into it. Justifications take up time, allow you to avoid the mistake, and lead you away from taking responsibility.
6. Continuously Ask for Feedback: This is different from seeking mentorship. Great salespeople know that they’re not perfect and that they have blindspots. They know that they’re making mistakes they don’t see. Continuously asking for feedback can help you notice your blindspots and truly grow.

So, if you follow these six approaches, you’ll make sure that you own up to your mistakes. People will immediately view you as a reliable and trustworthy colleague or business partner. Your leads will appreciate you because they know that set them up for success. They never need to worry that you will try to cover things up. You’re a person with some true character!

And To Avoid Mistakes in Your Outreach, Make Sure To Give Resonaid a Try!

Resonaid is a tool that provides you with automated and personalized sales messages for your outreach that really resonate with your leads. The times of misspelled names or standardized messages are over. On top, Resonaid helps you to cut down the time spend on outreach from hours to minutes a day. So, make sure to give Resonaid a try!

Access Resonaid via the Chrome Web Store

Resonaid is a tool that helps sales professionals with writing personalized messages for their sales outreach.

We recently released the first version of our product as a Chrome extension in the Chrome Web Store.

As we just went live this summer, you can currently test Resonaid for free and get large discounts by being an early user.

About the Author

Teddy Lange is a co-founder at Resonaid and is responsible for business development and customer experience. Before joining Resonaid, he’s been a Sales Rep and Junior Sales Manager, and co-founded various companies. He’s currently finishing his graduate degree in Public Policy with a focus on communication at Harvard University. Feel free to reach out to him at teddy@resonaid.co.