Last week I wrote about sales wisdom from my 8-year old son's tennis lesson. This week I will write about an extension of that lesson from my daughter and her early pursuit of tennis excellence. Now for all of you parents, this is not (just) about being fair and writing the same number of blog posts about each child, there really is something to this.
So in last weeks blog, my son illustrated the power of incremental learning. My daughter has been watching all of this play out, and as such got to start her tennis lessons with the benefit of a model.
While the trait that first jumps out from watching my son is competitiveness, in my daughter it is diligence. She really focuses on how to do what she is being told, then working to execute well.
In this way, my son and daughter together make a great analogy for a sales organization.
My sons experience highlights the idea that if you are doing a lot of stuff pretty well, incremental improvement can get you to a place where you are overall much more proficient.
My daughter teaches us that coming into a situation already rich with a model of success, one can improve dramatically by focusing on refining execution within the framework of the model.
Frequent readers of this blog, readers of my books and clients of my consulting service should be able to predict what is coming next:
In a sales organization, the sales process is the model and the framework for success. When you have some raw skills, hunger and drive but need refinement like my son, then the framework of the sales process can offer the model to follow.
When you bring new talent into a well-functioning system, analogous to my daughter beginning her tennis adventure with the benefit of a model, then refining towards a uniform and correct goal is much easier and much more likely to succeed that trying the same thing without the model.
To improve the results of your personal selling system or that of your organization, follow the lead of my (clearly brilliant) kids and first set up the system itself, then fill it with people capable of growing within it. The degree to which your sales organization will grow relative to the more random approach taken by most just might astound you!
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