Building Sales Teams: Growth Means Making Mistakes

When we invest in an expansion stage company, our first task is to perform an assessment of various operations within the company. My responsibility is to work with the executive teams offering sales and marketing support. We focus on the Sales Process, Sales Methodology, etc. to get started. Often in those assessments I make some suggestions and normally hear “We tried that before and it didn’t work”. I am already seeing signs in a company at this early stage that teams are scared to death to make mistakes and try things in a better way.

I found this blog by Doug Washington that I really think is excellent. It is titled Growth Means Making Mistakes. I think he really nails it and I was able to extract a lot from it. If you find yourself “on your heels” or lapsing into a defensive mode all of the time, it is well worth the read.