SALES TIP OF THE WEEK: If You Didn’t Bring It With You, You Won’t Find It Here

“We learn by doing.”

Aristotle: Influential ancient Greek philosopher

Did you ever teach a child how to swim? If you wanted to, you could just sit and read dozens of books or watch some videos that would teach the fundamentals to your youngster. After listening to you read a few pages, your kid would no doubt run off and do something more stimulating if they are like any kid that I know.

Can you really learn to do anything without eventually jumping in and doing it? The answer in short is an emphatic no. This is also true when it comes to sales training.

A child learns to swim by getting in the water and going through the motions. The same applies to you in our program as well. We learn by doing, by trying, by failing, and by trying again.

Getting in front of your customer without practicing your sales, presentation and objection handling techniques is like a swimmer competing in the Olympics after they have only gone to a seminar on swimming without ever really practicing in the water first.

I know that you’re probably uncomfortable role playing and so forth in front of a crowd. The greatest fear of all is public speaking and when you add the twist of role playing a difficult sales interaction it can turn anyone’s stomach in knots.

You know that feeling you have right before you jump in the pool when you don’t really know how cold the water will be? Well, that is what your irrational fear of practicing and role playing is akin to,

What can you do to overcome your reluctance to practice with role playing?

1. Don’t call it role playing, let’s just call it practice.

2, Practice with a safe person. Someone you can trust to not judge you.

3.Discuss the outcome that you want to practice in this particular session.

4, Don’t practice the whole situation. Chunk it down to one section.

There is a saying in sales, “The first person you have to sell is you.” That’s right. You have to convince yourself that practicing your responses before you “go live on stage” is better than going in front of a customer not having practiced at all.

As famous golfer, Arnold Palmer once said about practicing the game of golf to a reporter who asked if had worked on his game DURING the tournament. Arnold said, “If you didn’t bring it with you, you won’t find it here.”

The message is clear. Practice your response to common sales situations until it is more normal to say the right thing than the wrong thing. And by all means, do not practice in front of the customer.

Go ahead jump in and start practicing. The water feels great!

Joe Crisara
www.contractorselling.com