Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
If you’re distraught, my condolences as you’re not alone.
Have you counted on make a big sale, but you didn’t? Ouch. Salespeople don’t make every sale.
If you’ve lost a key employee, here again are my condolences. And if you’re an employee who has lost a fellow co-worker, it’s tough losing a close friend or someone who is like family to you.
There are all kinds of emotional losses in business. You’re likely to feel abandoned, angry, disappointed, frustrated and/or hurt.
Guess what? Such negative emotions are all caused by fear. And the word, fear, is an acronym for “frantic effort to avoid responsibility.” You have a responsibility to your company and yourself to deal with this.
The good news is you can survive an emotional business loss with the three A’s: Awareness, acceptance and action.
Here’s more on the three great tools:
1. Awareness
The first tool, awareness, is often the easiest. It’s not hard to become aware of problems you can’t control.
Sometimes you can’t successfully manage your way through an economic downturn. You can’t always act quickly enough if a big competitor comes to town to grossly undercut your prices.
You can’t always successfully cope with overzealous government regulation or an unreasonable Internal Revenue Service.
Nor can you give an employee a high-enough raise to compete with job offers from other companies.
Once you become aware of the impact of the problem, you’re one-third of the way to tranquility.
2. Acceptance
However, just because you’re fully apprised of the ramifications of a problem, it’s a bigger challenge to accept it. The phrase, “It is what it is,” is sometimes tiring, but it’s true.
So your only option is to accept reality. Lean into the pain caused by the problem. Don’t run from it.
You have to develop absolute faith that everything will turn out OK.
For instance, you must trust America’s free-enterprise system or that another great employee will be attracted to your company.
Remember whatever the situation, there’s something in your career experience that has prepared you for this.
We’re never given more than we can handle.
In other words, you accept the problem is an opportunity for growth. Even after a downward slope of a roller-coaster ride, the roller coaster will go up again.
3. Action
So now it’s time for action.
You know what the problem is. Analyze your role that helped to create the problem.
Did you exercise due diligence about your competition? Did you speak out about onerous government regulations before they had a chance to harm you? Did you fail to fully recognize a valued employee?
Address the practical considerations. Focus on the solutions. Write them down.
With a laser-like focus, arrive at the solutions and roll up your sleeves. Attack the problem with a vengeance.
More than likely, the results will be outstanding. You can and will survive an emotional business loss.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related solutions:
30 Time Management, Stress Reducing Tips — Tips that will enable you to take bold measures to invest in your future and make money by saving time and reducing stress.
Step-by-Step Solutions for a Financial Turnaround — Difficult economic conditions have exacerbated the financial woes facing many businesses. But business success is possible for companies suffering through red ink. Here are financial solutions that will help facilitate a company turnaround.
Strategies if Your Accounts Receivables Are a Problem — Increasingly, receivables are continuing to haunt businesses as their customers struggle. Here are some solutions.
6 Tips to Create New Sales with Successful Cold Calling – It’s important to create new opportunities with successful cold calling. Attending mere networking events or depending on a high marketing budget aren’t sufficient for strong sales. OK, cold calling isn’t always easy, but you must if you want to dramatically increase sales in double-digit percentages.
Elevate Sales via 5 Best Practices in Pricing and HR Training — Sophistication in pricing by salespeople is an excellent driver to grow earnings rather than just looking for ways to cut costs. Instead of growing their profits with sophistication in pricing, many businesspeople miss growth opportunities when they mistakenly cut muscle – usually in human capital and branding. Here’s a better way.
Failure, loss and defeat are just mile markers on the road to success.
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