We’re often told not to take things personally, yet, there are times
when briefly doing so serves us well. Take, for example, when you learn
that a current client bought from someone else. Most likely, that means
the customer did not tell you or, more often than not, that you did not
ask how else you could be of service. In this instance, one of your
competitors got a check that should have been made out to your company.
It’s moments like this that I recommend you take just a few moments
and take this very, very personally. You missed out! Somewhere, somehow,
the follow-through, process, or value was not sufficient enough to
engage that customer in spending more money.
The questions to ask, when this happens, are:
1. What did I miss this? And how did I miss it?
2. And how do keep this from happening again?
Mistakes are valuable as long as they are made only once as the lessons from them are instilled as permanent change.