[tell-a-friend id=”1″ title=”Tell a friend”]

Your day is a series of ups and down. When you don’t have the resources or the capital you need, there are often more losses than wins. When you do get wins, they are energizing and reinforcing, but they always seem to raise other issues. I remember when we won our first big customer:

We were high-fiving in the parking lot. We had won the health incentive business of a large national health plan and just signed the contract at their offices. It was a two-year process and winning a national health plan would likely ripple throughout the health community. The ride from Connecticut down Route 95 back to New York City was  packed with traffic. Who cared at this point? The team was on cloud nine. Then it hit me. Did we have the resources to support them? What  if this one health plan went poorly? Were  the account people we had sophisticated  enough to manage a complex health plan? Would we end up customizing our technology and throwing our technology road map off course?

You have to celebrate your wins. There are many times during the meeting, the hour, the day, the week, and the month that you will get punched in the face. At early stages, wins tend to be small and incremental. Nonetheless, celebrate them. At the same time, be prepared that when the wins come, they naturally raise issues and concerns. It’s like this: just as you are relieved and happy your teenage daughter is all grown up, you realize she is about to start dating.