Bill Canady's team announced an exit strategy for a major account, then immediately received a huge order from that same customer. With no plan in place and everyone watching, he learned that the biggest tests arrive right when you're least ready.
Holy cow! It's exactly what you'd expect to happen, and you definitely don't want it to happen. It was almost line for line the exact set of accounts my team had been told the previous evening we were exiting that week. And here we got a big order on our hands. What are we going to do? 12 hours. I want to tell you I had a plan for this. I did not. What I had was a room full of people watching to see whether the thing I sent Sunday night Was it a strategy or just a move? Did the boss just say we're going to do something and keep doing what we had been doing? Well, that's the lesson, isn't it? It's why I opened with it. The test always comes immediately when you need it the most and want it the least. Not eventually, immediately, usually from your biggest account, usually before your own team has finished reading the memo.
