How to Hack Our Own Habits to Accomplish More, with Kara Goldin

Mo asks Kara Goldin: What is your habit when you get told no?

• Kara was a gymnast when she was growing up but she never really excelled at it. It was during those training sessions where she learned the discipline to always look for the good in the experience.
• Kara tells the story of how she lost Starbucks as a client for the Hint beverage company, a loss of 40% of her business in the span of two weeks. Despite the loss, having the product in Starbucks was the foundation of her opportunity to get into Amazon’s grocery business and led to Kara realizing that customer data is crucial.
• After being told by both Starbucks and Amazon that they weren’t going to share their customer data with her, Kara realized that she needed to focus on business development and start her own direct-to-consumer business. Seven years later, direct-to-consumer sales are now over 50% of the business.
• There were plenty of naysayers that said beverages can’t be sold over the mail but business has tripled since the beginning of the pandemic, which wouldn’t have happened had Kara listened to the people saying it couldn’t be done.
• Challenges and failures are the learnings that help you to do better in the long run.
• Great growth-oriented business developers take a setback and feel the pain, yet realize that there is something to learn from and opportunities can still come from it.
• When you get told no, it’s important to understand their why. Maybe that deal is not meant to be part of your journey but there is always something to learn from the experience and opportunity to find out more. Get all the info you can. A phone call about why you lost may not sound like a fun conversation but can be very enlightening.
• Be a resource to people that is a joy to be around. Resourcefulness is a crucial aspect of business development.
• Understanding the probabilities also helps give you perspective. If you are swinging for the fences and have a low probability of success and you know that, if it doesn’t work out it’s not going to be so disappointing.

Mentioned in this Episode:

GrowBIGPlaybook.com

karagoldin.com - Get her book Undaunted