Excellence, Not Perfection

"Perfection is usually not attainable;
but excellence often is."

Skip Anderson

Some people spend their careers trying to achieve the unachievable: perfection. The pursuit of perfection wastes time and resources, and causes missed opportunities. Why seek perfection if it's usually not attainable? For most people in most situations, excellence is good enough.

I propose that we in business focus on excellence, not perfection.

What does dysfunctional perfectionism look like? Here are examples of business people seeking perfection instead of excellence:

• A kitchen designer who includes a half-dozen intricate custom products in his design for his prospect that go far above and beyond typical custom cabinetry. In an effort to wow his client and pacify his personal need for perfection, he has to retrieve special pricing quotes from his production department and require the installation team to do intricate work that is beyond their scope of expertise. And if the prospect never buys, all the design effort was for naught. An excellent design within the comfortable capabilities of his company would probably have been good enough. 

• A business owner who spends months crafting his marketing campaign, but then never does anything with his creation. Her perfectionism got the best of her.

• The salesperson who spends eighteen hours researching his prospect before he cold calls them. Some research is often an excellent idea. Too much research is never a good idea.

• The retail manager who expects merchandise to be displayed perfectly. She has made it clear to her staff that this is her priority. But shouldn't selling that merchandise be the first priority? Excellent merchandise displays are very helpful in achieving business goals; perfect merchandise displays are unattainable (especially when customers are involved in your displays).

• The salesperson who rehearses his presentation to an important prospect ad nauseum, and therefore puts all his eggs in this one basket. If you have other prospects to sell to, other customers to serve, other prospecting to do, and other tasks on your to-do list, spending too much time on one presentation is not a good idea, especially if the customer doesn't buy from you.

When our focus is on perfection, we force ourselves down a path that  will almost never make the best use of our resources. Some people wear the badge of perfectionism with pride, but for most in business, perfectionism is a roadblock to success, not a route to it.

Strive to be excellent, not perfect.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more.