Cold, freezing and…Successful Postmortems…

Cold, freezing and…dealing with it

Yep, it’s cold out. And while keeping your sidewalk cleared so the neighborhood Karen doesn’t “remind” you, there are the cold weather business issues do deal with as well. Like taking that titration kit in the house at night and of course the occasional detergent popsicle to deal with.

There we need to be aware of the difference in the freeze warnings on those labels and what they mean. As a reminder, there are four freeze classes.

The first are those are products that carry no mention of freezing. Assuming their maker is being diligent in their choice of labeling language, they’re not an issue. In descending order then come the ones labeled Do Not Freeze.

Those warnings come in a couple of flavors. The least worrisome are the products that are classified as “freeze thaw stable”. That means they will thaw at room temperature and return to their pristine state. Then come the ones that can be reconstituted after thawing, but only with agitation.

Finally there are the products that become permanent layered parfaits and if froze are pretty much only useful as a doorstop. Once those products separate into layers of their various ingredients, they will not reconstitute no matter how long, or well they’re agitated.

Successful Postmortems…And future successes

When we’re successful in opening that new account, our typical reaction is to celebrate the accomplishment. And while that’s absolutely natural – and certainly appropriate, we should be mindful that once that celebratory stage is behind us, there’s a very important next step.

It’s understanding why and how we succeeded.

That step is essential to repeating that success again and again. By dissecting it we can hone our skills and sharpen that presentation in our next attempt to gain new business. And it’s especially important to do that as soon as possible after succeeding – because in a day or two we’ll likely forget much of what had just transpired. And even if we think we think we’ll recall it clearly then, chances are that recollection will be less accurate.

Of course every success has embedded in it those missteps that almost derailed it. Looking inside our successes to identify the less effective parts that we can avoid, can be just as valuable as the positives we hope to repeat