No, this isn’t the ranting of a nearly over-the-hill sales professional who has finally flipped out! Good Failures are errors I have made which have taught me important life and business lessons.

Not surprisingly, the most expensive financial errors were the most memorable and sometimes painful to my wounded wallet and damaged ego.

While none of us intentionally seek failure, especially in our success-centric, society; I have become a believer in one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous quotation:

“Whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

Am I rationalizing? You bet! I accept my failures as ‘grist for the mill’ in the words of my high school Latin Teacher, John Bell, as long as the price wasn’t too stressful. To me, failure is an acceptable option!

I’m in good company as I look at some of history’s most famous failures. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie, John H. Patterson Walt Disney, and Thomas Watson, Jr. Watson was fired by NCR (National Cash Register Company), my first employer. He moved on to found IBM so, he learned well from his failures. Now, that’s a happy ending!

Good Failures can be wonderful learning landmarks, provided we don’t give up; repeat our failures, or become cynical during our failing process.

While I have lost count of my failures, I have recited several during paid speaking engagements. Audiences love to hear a speaker brandish self-deprecating humor provided it is relevant to the presentation. Humor is an excellent tool for anchoring a message and for bonding the speaker with the audience. WOW, this guy isn’t too big to admit his goofs!

Good Failures’ greatest lessons are dissected and thoroughly analyzed because they reveal what behaviors to avoid and when to avoid them.

Failing forward is the mindset of an optimist, who upon gleaning the lessons of one’s own failure and taking personal responsibility builds upon the lesson and attempts to succeed until success and the ‘aha moment’ are achieved, and with it, the ultimate satisfaction of accomplishment.

In November 1967, after 9 months of cold calling every hotel and motel from South Beach to Golden Beach, and only closing 3 sales while employed as an NCR accounting machine salesman in the Miami Beach sales territory; I learned a formula for systematically gaining access to Hospitality Industry decision makers which I named the: the Power Prospecting™ Formula. Little did I realize the significance of my ‘aha moment’.

Teaching others to apply this formula would one day become the focal point of my life. It would give my life purpose. Between 1967 and 1983, I repeatedly applied improved versions of this Power Prospecting™ formula and I moved from being an employee to an entrepreneur, several times with good failures, successes and compensation to match.

Yes, good failures have become a way of life for me as acceptable options.

The positive learning experiences and the confidence gained from prior failures which lead to successful outcomes have resulted in achieved goals with financial and personal gains beyond my wildest imagination.

Next week, I’ll share my views of the ‘Twitter Fad’. 

I still keep bumping into them: account reps, sales consultants and management consultants. These are the poor, despondent souls who have joined the growing ranks of the unemployed 7 million. Their faces mirror the sad look of Chicken-Little. Their skies, self-esteem and attitudes have fallen to new depths.

Yet, each time we cross paths, they ask me the same, tired question: what’s your secret for getting new customers during this Recession? I tell them: Become a problem-solver and prove your value to your customers and prospects!

Effective Problem-Solvers Share these 4 Success Habits:

First, they have a bullet-proof attitude. My glass is always half full. Like everyone else, I’m feeling the pinch of higher prices but I refuse to dwell on the bad news. Even when doors are slammed in my face, I stay motivated because I know positive change is coming. In my 41 years in business I have experienced and even thrived through 7 lean times, not too different from now. Staying focused and productive will lead me out of this wilderness back to the Promised Land of Prosperity!

Recently, President Clinton while being interviewed by CNN’s Larry King, said, “No one has ever made money betting against America.” We still live in the most productive and resourceful nation on the planet. We will survive and live to thrive, again. Count on it!

Second, they know their best prospects. Wake me up at 2 am and with incredible accuracy, I’ll rattle off my best customers’ demo and psycho graphic characteristics. I stay laser-focused on my narrow niche and I let nothing distract me. Clients and prospects, like these, have paid my bills since 1967 and they will continue to do so.

Third, they stay connected. Read my Feb 22nd blog to see how I do it. Even when decision-makers tell me, Gordie Allen:

• We aren’t budgeting for any new projects, now.
• We aren’t hiring sales people.
• We don’t need your sales training services.
• We aren’t opening any new offices.
• We have a hiring freeze.
• Stop by in a month………6 months, or next year.

Guess what? Whenever I have put the right, new projects at their feet they have always moved mountains to find the funds. How do I discover what’s hot and what’s not? It’s simple, I just pay attention.

Fourth, they begin by asking fresh, open-ended, questions to discover what has changed with their clients’ processes. For me, questions about their: new competition, distribution channels, product life cycles, product upgrades; special promotions, and the longer or shorter decision cycles which challenge their sales teams. 

My secret: I listen intently for key trigger phrases or cues. Problem-solvers, like me, hear opportunity knocking whenever a decision-maker says, Gordie, our problem is. The word, problem, is music to our ears. Here’s why: if this problem is causing enough severe pain, it is my opportunity to make it go away. I become their Doctor Feel-Good! Problems are nothing more than disguised opportunities.

I could ramble on about other, effective question-asking techniques. Here’s a better idea: buy and study The S.P.I.N. Selling Fieldbook, by Neil Rackham, ISBN #0-07-052235-9, published by McGraw-Hill.  Complete the homework assignments and you can become a master asker, just like me.

I forget where I heard or read this saying but I changed it because it beautifully sums up my attitude: “If opportunity doesn’t knock, then I build a door.”