Listen to Howard talk about Never Push A Bad Position:
As a dedicated and focused CEO, president or business owner, you make things happen in your business. Because you are so intent at making things happen, at times you may not be observing what is really going on around you.
You may at one time or another said something like…
- I’m going to sign that new account even though I’m not completely happy with the terms of the contract.
- I’m going to get that new customer I’ve been prospecting for months and months even though their response time hasn’t been the best.
- I’m going to hire that person for the job even though they don’t quite have what I’m looking for.
- I’m going to go ahead with making that purchase for the business even though it’s more than I’m willing to spend. I’ll take a chance we’ll have the money.
- I’m going to make a decision by the end of today with or without the information.
- I’ll make this happen even though it’s a tough sell.
Sound familiar?
It’s when the business situation isn’t perfect – and you know it’s not the best fit for your business. Yet you’re determined to make it work despite the odds. You’re willing to risk pushing a bad position – and hope it works out.
There’s something I’d like you to think about. First of all, hope is not a business strategy. Second, never push a bad position in business. Never. Because the unintended consequences may be worse than if you had walked away from the situation.
You need to have enough activity in your business so that any one situation or circumstance, any one person or employee, any one sale or contract, is not critical to the overall success of the business. In other words, it’s not a life or death situation that will make or break the business or deter business in any way.
We’ve all made business decisions that we wish we had never made. That we knew in our gut were wrong, a bad deal or would cause more trouble than it was worth.
Let’s use acquiring new business as an example. You may be very skilled and talented at what you do. But if you push a bad position, if you push too hard to make it work, if you sell it and close the deal, now what? Because deep down inside your gut you knew that if you close this deal it’s going to be nothing but trouble and riddled with problems from the start. Whatever money you make on this deal, it’s not going to be worth it because of the time and resources involved. You know that your company really can’t meet the needs of this customer.
There is a time to withdraw from working with a customer. There is a time not to sell prospects even though we want to sell to every company or person we can.
The same is true when hiring. The job candidate may have the right skills and appear to be a fit with your company. But their attitude demonstrates some red flags by certain things said or done during the interview process. Yet you’re desperate to fill a job opening. Their resume is exactly what you’ve been looking for. You know you shouldn’t hire the candidate based on just something that voice in your head keeps telling you but you hire the candidate anyway. And what you hoped wouldn’t happen or what you hoped wouldn’t cause a problem, happens. Now what? You now need to give that employee the opportunity of a lifetime and that is: to go find another job.
Remember: Never push a bad position. Because when you do, you’re going to get results that you’ll want to pull away from. Learn from the experience and move on as quickly as possible. Get out while you can still repair the damage to your company.
As I mentioned earlier in this article, you need to have the appropriate amount of activity in your business so that you don’t have to make that one sale or close that one particular deal or to hire when you are desperate. Know that you can walk away.
It’s completely appropriate to recognize and acknowledge when a person or a situation is not a good match or fit with your company and that they should go and work with another company that will be right for them. For everyone.