Alright folks, let's hear it: What was your most embarrassing/monumental f*** up during your day to day, and how did you recover?
I'll start.
A few weeks back I was doing an in-person drop in with a prospect. I ended up getting there right around lunch. I saw the prospect I was trying to meet with leaving the building for his vehicle. I had done a good amount of research before hand and recognized the guy from his headshot on the org's website. I rushed out of my car, cookies in hand, and flagged him down in the parking lot because I didn't want to miss the opportunity.
He was super caught off guard, refused to make eye contact or shake my hand as I introduced myself. Literally said "this is really strange." I expressed that I knew I was coming out of nowhere here and was just hoping to introduce myself and open the door to a conversation, didn't want to miss my chance before he potentially left for the day. This... didn't work. Apologized profusely and handed off the cookies, wished him a good rest of his day, and retreated.
Ended up waiting for him to leave and went into the building to try and meet with the other decision maker at the org, and successfully made contact in a much less awkward way. However, I think I probably killed any chance of a deal with that first interaction. Not sure how I'm going to come back from this one.
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