Time Heals the Wound…

Dustin with his "fall down" boo-boo in the emergency room...

Last Thursday around 5:30PM I was in my office preparing to wrap up a few West Coast calls and get things in order for an early morning call to Poland and I get a frantic call from Sara that I needed to meet her at the Emergency Room.

While I did I not match her 90 MPH urban traffic driving record to the hospital, I arrived there in short order to find that our son had smashed his right index finger off to the tip of the bone (yeah…. not too pretty).

The Greenville hospital system impressively sent in several doctors, xray-d the hand, did some cosmetic cutting and wrapping, and in less than 2 hours had us home with a stop at the pharmacy first for some anti-biotics.

I have the job of changing the wound every day, and so I was surprised when 24 hours later what was a super nasty mangled finger tip (sans fingernail) was healing amazingly well.  Serious improvement in a short time…

This led me to think about how complicated sales deals “heal” over time.

It is amazing how a day (just 24 hours….) can make a sour deal into a “quota buster”.  Hope seems lost…  Depression sets in.  Salespeople start making bad (usually rushed, frantic, and retarded….) decisions that lead to them assuring themselves of NOT getting the deal closed.  Things like:

• Calls to the client that are non-purposed, “I need this order” goblygook…
• Emails of 5 to 17 paragraphs that “explain” the situation…
• Basically anything else relating to calls or emails that involve you communicating to the client in your state of paranoid, confused ridiculousness…

Here’s the overall formula:

Imagine if I “freaked” out with my little Dustin and had his arm amputated because of his finger.  “You’re crazy,” you are probably thinking, and I would be.  That’s overreacting to the millionth degree.

• Just like your late-night email to the client laying out the 47.5 reasons why they should buy from you…
• Just like your 3 minute voice mail message begging the client to “trust you on this one”…
• Just like any interaction with a customer where value is not the primary motivation for your interaction…

Time heals wounds…  It helps regrow a 2 year-old finger and helps rebuild a deal that you think you lost.  Stop overreacting and let time heal your deal.  Here is a sure way to help you stop when you just need to let time heal your deal — the golden rule of “living to fight another day”:

NO CALLS. NO EMAILS. FOR 24 HOURS.

The crazy thing is how something so simple like this actually works.

You will be amazed at well you are able to build your strategy when you take some time to think clearly and don’t kill your chances for success!

Cheers to Dustin getting better and cheers to all of us letting time help us close more deals…