7 steps to becoming antifragile

Hi Friends,

Welcome to Win Rate Wednesday.

In this issue:

1. The Win Rate Podcast - Why Have Win Rate Expectations Become So Low?

2. Win Rate Lesson - 7 steps to becoming antifragile

3. Fix Your Broken Win Rates!

[This Week on The Win Rate Podcast]

Joining me on this week’s episode of ​The Win Rate Podcast​ to dig into how you can improve your sales effectiveness, elevate the buyer experience and improve your win rates are:

​Steven Benson​, CEO and founder of Badger Mapping.

​Jon Feldman​, VP of Sales at anecdotes.ai. And co-founder and co-host of the Rally Call podcast.

​Michael Pedone​, Chief Sales Scientist at SalesBuzz.com.

Listen to the full episode: ​Why Have Win Rate Expectations Become So Low?​

[Today’s Win Rate Lesson]

Are you antifragile?

Or just fragile?

How do you react and respond to volatility, randomness and disorder?

I’ve been spending time again with Nassim Taleb’s book: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.

It has a lot of good lessons for sellers.

For instance, people usually believe that resilience is the inverse of fragility. It’s not.

As Nassim writes "Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”

In short, those who are antifragile learn how to get better under adverse conditions.

They learn how to harness ambiguity, volatility and randomness to improve their performance and improve their odds of winning the next time.

The antifragile benefit from the shock of the unexpected; they thrive and grow when exposed to chaos, stress, risk and uncertainty.

If you’re in sales and looking for a well-ordered work environment then you took the wrong exit off the freeway.

To be antifragile means that you must be prepared for anything that comes your way. Not just that one thing. Everything.

The key to this preparation is learning. Learn as much as you can about everything to prepare for any eventuality.

Remember this wisdom from Thomas Huxley: "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” (I’m going to keep repeating this until you all know this by heart and have put it into action.)

That’s how I’ve prepared myself in my career to deal with known variables and anticipate the unknown.

Here are some rules from Taleb to help you become antifragile:

Stick to simple rules.

If your sales processes are too complex, or too rigid, they become more vulnerable to the natural randomness and volatility of life.

Resist the urge to suppress randomness.

It’s all well and good to have a well-defined sales process. It’s when you try to bend reality to conform to your process that you become fragile. Embrace ambiguity.

Make sure that you have your soul in the game.

If you’re in sales just because it’s a job, go get another job. Products come and go but you have to be passionate about serving customers and solving problems.

Experiment and tinker

Take lots of small risks. Rinse and repeat. Remember this timeless wisdom from Ralph Waldo Emerson. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments the better.”

Don’t get consumed by data

Everyone mistakes correlations for cause and effect. And makes assumptions and generalizations that are not supported by facts in evidence. Data is important if used carefully. It’s your assumption that it’s always right that gets you into trouble.

Focus more on avoiding things that don’t work than trying to find out what does work

This is a great place to start. Certain things just don’t work. Communism. Trickle-down economics. Low win-rate sales processes. Avoid them first before you start experimenting.

Respect what works

Embrace proven habits and rules. As much as things change, there are some enduring constants. Like the basics of building connection and trust with another human being, for instance.

[Fix Your Broken Win Rates]

The #1 reason your win rates are low?

The value and quality of the buyer’s experience with you as they go through the process of making their decision.

(In case you’re wondering, any win rate under 50.1% is too low.)

My best-selling book, Sell Without Selling Out, is the definitive guide to help sellers create winning buying experiences built on the four pillars of Successful Selling: Connection, Curiosity, Understanding, Generosity.

​Click here to grab your copy today.​

Good selling,

Andy