About 15 years ago, I received a call on Saturday evening, where I was explained that tomorrow at 2 pm, I should be trying to break the Guinness World Record (GWR) on the highest martial arts kick and it would be filmed for the official GWR program to be shown internationally. I know that you would want to read a fairy tale story, where I would be the hero and break the record, but I’m sorry, this is not the case. So, if that was the reason for you coming to read my blog, I have to disappoint you now, in the beginning of this post.

In my training group, there were two guys, who might had had a chance to break the record (2,94m that time), but they both were injured. I had been the contact person and thought that the record breaking attempt had been called off and had no idea, that it would be tomorrow. In training I had managed to kick up to 2,7m (I am 1,76m tall), but nothing close to the current record. If you have read my previous posts, I have written about yearly black belt test and on that Saturday, we had run 30kms in a rough terrain. My girlfriend had injured her knee and was in the waiting room at the hospital to get assistance. So you can imagine, how I felt at the hospital when the caller said that “you have to come here tomorrow and try to break the record. We have flown people from England to this attempt to be the officials of GWR monitoring the attempt and possible approving the record". I entered the train at 7 am and was at the recording studio at 11 am on Sunday morning. I knew, I had no chance of breaking the record. And with the 30kms run, I had no explosivity left, but this chance to be on tv and get the promotion for the martial art, was more important than losing my face with failed attempts. I hoped that I would break my own record, to say the least.

In sales, I have many times got into a situation, where my superior, perhaps the CEO of the company, had talked to a client and promised a very good deal. When I entered the negotiations and screened the needs of these prospects and their budget, I was in a place, where I would need to sell gold with a price of garbage. The expectations, were so high and the budget so low, that there were no chances to meet their expectations with the offer. There would have been no business for us, if I had sold with the price they were expecting. Of course, in those times, I reached out to the CEO and explained the situation, but that didn’t solve the problem. Even if he had approved the super low pricing, it would just help to close the deal, but not to make any business. We would have more likely lost some money and I would have had to come up with a lot more sales from other clients than possible, in order to recover the loss.

Even if you don’t win the price, you might still gain a lot

Both of these cases, required a lot of self-esteem. I was in a place, where I was not going to be successful and very likely a lot of (important) people, would look down on me and maybe even blame me for not succeeding. Especially, the record breaking attempt on TV was a hard part for me. I managed to kick 2,5m in the show and was very disappointed in me. I knew that there would be a lot of martial artists, who would laugh at this result. Especially, when it was announced to be the Finnish record (since nobody else had tried it, under the officials of GWR) of highest martial arts kick.

We got a lot of good exposure from the GWR show and that helped us to promote ourselves a lot. There were discussions in many internet forums, where people were laughing at the poor result. I felt ashamed about the result, when I was introduced as the Finnish record holder in different events. But the show opened us new doors for other TV performances and still gave us a lot of credibility among people, who didn’t train martial arts.

With previously explained situations in sales, where I was sitting in a table, I would not normally make. When trying to close an impossible deal, I chose to represent me as I am and not trying to sneak my way out of the situation. I tried to build the best possible solution and come up with a price, that nobody else would get, but which would still be much higher than the customer had stated with the current budget. Out of 10 situations, I was able to close 3 deals. Those that I wasn’t able to close that time, I have been able to close almost all of them later with a new solution. I knew that if I couldn’t meet the price they were expecting, I had to over-exceed their expectations of my expertise. So I put everything I had and asked for help from my colleagues to put the best offer ever built. And I prepared myself for the best performance possible, when presenting the offer to the prospects.

Mentally from rags to riches

Both of these examples played into my favor in the end, even though both cases felt like a disaster at the time. I didn’t give in. I did my best, even though, I knew that I had no chance at that time to succeed. I have had many excellent discussions during my professional working life about that GWR video. People find it on YouTube and value my performance there. With my world championships gold medal and that, people who work with me or are my customers, give me credit and admire me for my accomplishments. These help me to differentiate myself from other sales people. And in sales management, they give me a strong background of succeeding in life, which make it easier for my team to believe in me and work for me.

Moreover, I have gone through mentally tough situations, which have build up my character a lot. It would be nice to tell the story of having a Guinness World Record and closing all the big deals easily, but I consider these experiences more valuable in building my character than what I would have got from success. On the contrary, I do understand how top level athletes feel, when they disappoint their fans in big events in front of live tv or how it feels to let down your company and employees by not closing the big deal available. These all are valuable lessons and it is up to me to use the full potential given to me.