If the first key to saving business is to believe you can turn the customer around, what do you think the second key step is?

Cool, you’ve been paying attention. You’re right: pushing like crazy to find someone to talk to and tell you how you missed out.

Intro stage left: your champion. Your champion is the person on the account who will feed you the insights if the account is dead, and help you save the business if possible.

You’ll respond, "But if I had a champion, I wouldn’t need to use her/him to save the business. The biz would already be won."

Maybe. But as you travel right back to "GO" and collect your $200, understand that it doesn’t always work like that.

Develop champions.

Develop at least one on every account. You’ll need them to help get the order across the line and to help save a piece of business when it’s about to be canceled. You can only do so much from the outside looking in; you need an advocate inside the org who can do some heavy lifting for ya.

Push yourself further…fight for every ounce, and make yourself proud to be called a sales professional.