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1024: Taking Responsibility for Mistakes and Problems Can Help You Grow your Sales

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Blame and Victimism is short-term thinking…

Hello, you’re in the foodservice distribution business, so mistakes will happen just about every day! How you handle those mistakes will determine your future in this business.

So many DSRs are addicted to playing the victim. Whenever you find a problem, you will usually find a finger pointing blame elsewhere.

Common excuses used by DSRs:

  • If only my boss wasn’t such a control freak  
  • If only my customer would have ordered the right product
  • If only the buyer would have known that we were going to sell more cases of that product than ever before
  • If only our people weren’t so lazy and without drive
  • If only I hadn’t been born so poor, I wouldn’t have to work so hard
  • If only the driver would not have left that case of chicken at the wrong account
  • If only the other departments didn’t mess up orders all the time
  • If only all of my competitor’s prices weren’t so low
  • If only our business development guy would open more accounts for me
  • If only, if only, if only…

Blaming everyone and everything else for our problems and challenges may be the norm, and may provide temporary relief of the pain, but it also chains us to those very problems.

Show me a DSR who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his/her circumstances, and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his/her way through or around those challenges, and I’ll show you a very successful DSR.

People can share much in common, yet still be so different. They think differently. They have different and sometimes competing values, motivations and objectives. Conflicts naturally arise out of all of these differences, but if you can have mutual respect for one another and proactively help develop solutions to problems, that are better than either party’s original idea, then sales and business will grow like crazy!

DSRs, Be a Resource…  and Sell Something!