Real success takes time, doubt, and grit. Here is how we learned to fully appreciate success in a deal that took years to close.

Yesterday, our team was invited to a gathering with one of our customers, where we celebrated the closing of a major deal that took years to close.

You read right. Years to close.

We’re used to long sales cycles, but this deal was harder to close than any other deal in my career.

I’m refraining from reiterating all the twists and turns this deal took. But this article is inspired by a graphic I recently saw on LinkedIn — it is a perfect summary of an entrepreneur’s journey in the evil world of enterprise sales, and exactly what went through my head at yesterday’s celebration gathering.

Do You Believe in Quick Success?

People tend to forget that the apparent quick success stories on social media have nothing to do with the entrepreneurial reality of lengthy periods of doubt, hardship, and gritting your teeth.

So, therefore, please don’t read on if you believe in easy and quick success. There are tons of authors who preach how to get rich quickly. Not me though.

Let’s return to yesterday’s celebration. It was an honest, modest, and joyful celebration. A few words of thanks and gratefulness, a toast to the future yet to come, and looking back on the shared hardship of closing that major deal.

I sat there and mentally went back to the uglier phases I witnessed with this deal.

What Success Really Looks Like

The many periods of frenzy, when everybody thought the deal would finally materialize, and everything needed to be prepared overnight and in a hurry, only to learn later that there was yet another holdup nobody could have foreseen.

The times of holding informal meetings with various stakeholders, only to be left in the dark about the true intentions of the various players, and the true reasons why yet another version of the proposal needed to be prepared.

Getting a call on Christmas Eve, letting me know that the deal would not go through before the end of the year, as was promised and agreed in writing many times before. And as a consequence of that call, being left in agony over the Christmas holiday, because there was nothing to do, but the situation was too serious to let go and do nothing.

Coming back after the Christmas break, only to learn that the depths of administration unearthed yet another procedural ruling that needed to be clarified before finally being able to proceed. And as a consequence, getting serious questions of doubt from some of our long-time investors whether this deal would ever materialize, after all the frenzies that we had before.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

And at some point, against all odds, the deal somehow materialized. One big purchase order was in the mailbox, and the next thing I heard from our customer was the invitation to the said celebration.

I think it speaks for both our customer and ourselves that we enjoyed the modest celebration together after such an intense period, and appreciated the modesty of the occasion.

To fully appreciate success, remember the times of doubt and hardship. It doesn’t take a roaring party or wild posts on social media. It takes the right people and a dose of gratefulness and humility.