HERE’S HOW TO WIN FROM FAILURE.
The end of the year is rapidly approaching. (According to some stores, Christmas is just around the corner, which accelerates the feeling!) I hope you’ve been reviewing your business development plan throughout the year so you can adjust your plans to match what’s actually happening, but if not, now is the time to revisit your plan and evaluate your results. If your results are good, keep on keeping on… But what if you see failure and dead ends?
In last week’s article, I suggested you take a fresh look at business development missteps to see what you can learn from them. Sometimes you may find not just missteps but a series of closed doors, assumptions that proved to be wildly untrue, or concerted efforts directed to groups of potential clients or referral sources who simply couldn’t care less. Then what?
When you see failure, think pivot. Here’s Jeff Goins’ description of a pivot:
In basketball, you are allowed to take only two steps after you stop dribbling the ball. When you take that last step, the foot you land on becomes a “pivot foot.” That foot must remain fixed, but the other can freely move about, allowing you to spin around and find a teammate to whom you can pass the ball.
Although you are confined to where you are and how many steps you can take, at no point are you locked into any direction. That’s the beauty of the move. Even when all other opportunities are exhausted, you can always pivot.
A pivot is powerful not just in sports but also in life, because it takes away your excuses. It puts you back in control of the game you’re playing. Pivoting isn’t plan B; it’s the only plan that works.
Goins’ article (published as a guest post on Michael Hyatt’s blog) The Surprising Success We Find in Failure: How Pivoting Can Snatch a Big Win from Near Defeat offers specifics about the pivot and three questions that can help you discover the fixed point around which a pivot is possible. Read Goins’ post.