Are short term victories creating long term losses for you?

Tony Alessendra, originator of the Platinum Rule, discusses one of his early experiences in sales in “Sometimes, short-term victories can be long-term losses“.

In his story, Tony shares how successful he was at set some pots and other items to a woman.  He felt he had done a good job of closing the sale.  When he came back later to ask if she would refer him to her friends, she refused. She didn’t want him to do to her friends what he did to her– pressure her into something she didn’t want.

While Tony’s story is about his personal sales experience, the same point can be made in many areas of our life, particularly anywhere we have a relationship with someone else. Tony’s basic point is that in our enthusiasm, zeal or working hard to “close the deal” we can alienate the person with whom we are trying to have a relationship, whether it’s business, personal or intimate. We might get the person to do what we want in the moment, but that may ruin the chance of anything further relationship in the future.

Where else can this issue crop in in our lives? You can see it in dating relationships when one person pressures the other to get a “victory” only to have the relationship fall apart. You see it with children’s sports teams where the coaches/parents push children to be better and better and better, only to have the child quit the sport all together.

Where else do you see short term wins that result in long term losses?