The Finisher's Blog

When I was 10 my grandfather made an observation about me...I was a fast starter but a slow finisher. I would often get excited about starting something, but would rarely finish it.

When I was racing bicycles I was able to focus on the early part of a race, but often allowed negative thoughts to creep into my head when the race started getting hard. One day I learned a big lesson while in training with a group of friends. We were turning up the pace and as we got to the last two laps on the velodrome I said out loud, "nope...that's it," and I pulled up the track and slowed down my pedaling.

After the race when we all sat down, my good friend and mentor came up to me and shouted, "If you ever go in the tank like that again I will never ride with you again!" I got the point.

In sports and business and life there are finishers and there are people who tank. There are people who do the work to get the job done, and there are people who are very, very good but who don't quite finish well.

For many athletes, it is a matter of mental approach and focus.

It is the same with me...I often lose focus right at the moment that I need it the most.

For the next several months, I will dedicate this blog to pointing out examples of finishing and of people struggling to finish.

Here is my first example:

A month ago I had a fistfull of proposals out the door. I was sure to have a good end of the summer because I allowed myself to count the dollars and say to myself, "Even if I only get two-thirds of these jobs started, I am in fine shape." And I went on vacation.

Well...I didn't finish the sales job properly and I didn't get most of the work. I had gone into sales presentation mode...feature feature feature....benefit benefit benefit...and I forgot to finish.

The Sandler Sales method is called "post sell" to finish the sale. I have worked with another great sales manager who called it "confirming" the sale.

Either way, there are ways to re-confirm what you think is happening. And I learned that if you can't get the customer to confirm the project with you...then you are just chasing and hoping.

I wasn't finishing.