Form New Habits to Increase Sales
When I was about thirteen I was trying to be a compete in Iowa and on the Missouri Valley tennis circuit. There were a few kids who dominated in my state and they all had the same coach, Allen Jones. My oldest brother persuaded Jones to work with me.
When we began, I agreed to do exactly what he told me. We started working on my backhand because that was the least, worst part of my game.
For a month, all I was allowed to do was hit backhands!
When I did drills with other kids, they were only allowed to hit it to my backhand. I was not allowed to play any matches during that time either. The other boys in the Jones stable made fun of me relentlessly, but he knew that under that pressure, my new habits would crumble.
Jones wanted me to integrate new habits that he knew would work instead of me trying to make my old habits work.
Eventually, I moved on from the backhand to other strokes and when I was 17, I was an Iowa State High School Champion.
Here are the lessons for the sales professional and life in general.
- Progress takes hard work!
- Acquiring knowledge of a new skill or tactic is only the first step towards progress. You can't read "The 5 Keys to Doing This or That" and expect to get results.
- It takes time to get results.
- It takes Deliberate Practice to get results (one of the Sales Habitudes).
- Practice must be done in a controlled environment (like in front of the mirror) where the stakes are low.
- If you go into a high stakes situation without having practiced, when the pressure mounts, your mind will default back to your old habits. If you don't recognize this, you'll just say that the new ideas don't work.
- Again, progress takes hard work.
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