Leaving with style…Waistlines and…

Leaving with style…Leaving the door open

 

So, you lost the account. Hey, it happens. But that loss may not be the end of the story. Despite that fact, some of us will take that loss to heart and in the spirit of a bitter ex-lover, adopt the “You’re dead to me” approach. Truth is what goes around comes around and chances are fair to good that that now lost customer who jilted us so painfully might just come back to us and our charms one day.

 

So, what’s the best approach to dealing with the one-sided ending of that business romance? First, we need to be as gracious as humanly possible. And we need to make it clear that while we hate to see them go, we’ll do everything in our power to make the last day we service them every bit as positive as was day one.

 

Then we need to make that happen.

 

Assuming we can gather the strength and maturity to do that, we’ve planted the seed for our eventual return to again seek the business. And remember there’s always a chance that opportunity could occur sooner rather than later. Maybe that new supplier over promised, or maybe he’ll just under deliver. Assuming you left the door open with a classy departure, just maybe you’ll be able to walk right back through it! And even if that doesn’t happen, the fact that you were a class act in defeat is still all to your credit.

Waistlines and…Waisted time

 

Okay so you “successfully” bulked up over the holidays. And to make matters a bit worse, you failed to do the same for your new business activity between Turkey Day and Christmas. But don’t feel bad. It seems that is the way for most of us. So, take a look at the pre-Thanksgiving belt hole you’d been using and plan to do a bit more of the dinner table push away exercise and maybe even some actual exercise to get back to using it again by March. Then laser focus on the other problem!

 

But that other issue is a bit different because it won’t take nearly as long, (nor hunger pains, or sore muscles) to overcome! The prospect list already exists and (hopefully) you have an attack plan in place for each one on it and have a fresh idea or two that’ll appeal to them and make the sale more likely.

 

And in the event, you aren’t prepared to hit the road hard today, it’s time to pull it together and be ready to hit it hard no later than next week. That means developing strategies and ideas that fit each one (or at least the top five) and organizing all the tools you might need to make those calls count.

 

Next up: Some ideas on freshening old ideas.