#012 When you lose…don’t lose the learning, with Vince Tickel

KAMCast - Key Account Management Strategies for Business Leaders

IN THIS EPISODE:

How often do you put aside time to reflect honestly on the learning you have gained following the closure of a deal, whether you won or lost it?

Do you pause for a moment to celebrate the victory or commiserate the loss?

Or do you go deeper than that, in pursuit of feedback that can be fed forward into future pitches?

Creating a learning culture in an account management team is hugely beneficial and requires us all to embrace feedback, even the painful stuff.

The sort of feedback that tells us specifically what went well, so that we can repeat and replicate, and how things could have been better, so that we can tweak and develop our approach to maximise chances on the next attempt.

It will always feel better to focus on the wins and brush away the losses. And, at the same time, the risk we run is blindly ignoring the rich layers of feedback and learning that are available, if we intentionally go looking for it.

In this episode you get to listen and learn from my guest Vince Tickel - a seasoned entrepreneur, executive coach and group chairman of the Vistage Central London group.

Having started a career in the marketing departments of multi-national food companies, he set up his first company, a marketing consultancy called Interface, aged 24, working for branded companies such as Unilever, Bacardi-Martini, Bass and P&G.

In the late 90’s he diversified, setting up a chain of sales and marketing service companies in the UK and Europe building it into a £15m turnover group with over 100 staff.

I invited him on to KAMCAST to share with you what his experience has been in implementing a learning culture in his businesses - where feedback was king, and teams live by the mantra:

When you lose, don’t lose the learning.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

The reality is that you are highly unlikely to win all the deals or contracts you pitch for, right? Losing is part and parcel of the world of account management.

So how would rate yourself on learning from the feedback you get along the way?

Vince says that curiosity starts at the top of an organisation and we want to be recruiting ‘sponges not stones’. I like that – a great analogy.

Team members who are constantly looking for:

a. constructive criticism,

b. understanding what went well, and

c. what would be even better “if…(insert here)”

…could be the difference between static performance in the comfort zone and developing performance and growing relationships and revenue.

I am convinced after this conversation with Vince that Critical Feedback should be hard wired into a KAM Culture.

Of course, that requires TRUST and VULNERABILITY. To lead from a position of trust means not pretending to know everything. Being comfortable saying ‘I don’t know’, ‘I got that wrong’, ‘I’m sorry’.

This level of vulnerability will induce an attitude towards failure that embraces it in pursuit of learning and feedback. Ultimately eliminating the fear.

In this episode you’ll hear Vince’s top three tips on implementing critical feedback into your business:

TIP #1: A learning culture starts at the top

As leaders we need to be a student…always

TIP #2: Let people see what they can’t see

Create ways for your team to be able to view or listen to their own client facing activity so that they can analyse their own performance.

TIP #3: Have open sessions

Your peers can be your best coaches and guides - so give them the opportunity to listen, question, challenge and advise on what they would do if they were in your shoes.

KILLER QUESTION SEGMENT:

In each episode we ask you, our listener, a killer question that is designed to get you reflecting on your business, your KAM Culture and where changes in thinking and behaviour could lead to increased customer success.

In this episode we asked Vince to give us his killer question which was:

“Can you read anybody’s mind?”

Vince says the answer is NO (of course). In his experience invariably people superimpose their own thoughts on to others…however more often than not…it’s wrong.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MY GUEST: VINCE TICKEL

Vince hails from an early background in brand marketing, working with businesses like Unilever, Bacardi-Martini, Bass and P&G. In later years he focussed on building teams and growing businesses to multi-million-pound enterprises.

He has extensive experience across several categories across B2C and B2B sectors, and today he is the CEO and majority stakeholder at Hunter Luxury, a UK-based award-winning luxury packaging provider, and is the Chairman of a premium printer and office solutions business called Four Digital Solutions.

Vince is not one to stand still. He is also the Group Chair for Central London for Vistage – a peer group organisation for high performing Managing Directors, CEO’s and Business Owners. With Vince’s business philosophy being ‘drive your business, don’t let it drive you’ – he gets to motivate, inspire and drive his members to do just that.

When Vince is not at work, he enjoys spending free time with his wife Sue, a counselling Psychologist, their four children and way too many animals to count.

You can find out more about him on the Vistage Central London Group page, or connect with him on LinkedIn.