I spend quite a bit of time thinking about learning... how we learn, who chooses what we learn and how what we have learned or not learned affects us throughout our lives. Our first teachers are usually our parents, so where do I stand if they don't know very much? Will I be consigned to perpetual ignorance too?
How will I even know I don't know very much? It would be very limiting to my potential if this were the case, after all, most learning is done before we even get to school. So what if our "teachers".... good ol' Mum and Dad, grannies & granddads, siblings, aunts and uncles, etc. just aren't up to the mark? Just because I was born into a family of under-achievers, am I forever consigned to the same fate? That's an extreme example, but how about just having a lack of understanding in certain fields? Like money.
If Mum and Dad didn't know much about money, how to use it, how to accumulate it, then how am I going to learn? Schools don’t teach this stuff so I guess I’ll just have to muddle through on my own. Will I place the same importance (or lack of it) on money as my parents do? It's very likely I will. I'm guessing that I could educate myself later if I found some compelling reason to do so, but what pits would I have fallen into before I got the message that I needed an education about money?
How much would it cost me in all the failures I'd encounter before I got wise, after all, sometimes it takes more than one disaster before I realise I'm short on knowledge? I might know how to make money, but obtaining it and keeping it are two entirely different things. Then you add in the complications of using it, leveraging it and putting it to work. If you haven't been taught this stuff somewhere along the line, how on earth are you ever going to find out?
The same can be said for sales. One of my favourite expressions is “You don’t know what you don’t know.” It’s almost a mantra of mine. How do you know that you lack skills? If you’re not getting the same good results as your colleagues, are you telling yourself it’s because you’re not as good as they are, maybe you think you’re dumber or lazier, or not as attractive or sociable or all kinds of other personal failings that you can think of!
It’s far more likely that the fault doesn’t lie in your personal short-comings, it lies in your lack of skills. What a relief! Because if you have a personal skill shortage, you simply go out and get some, don’t you?! Aha, but wait a second, how do you know what skills you need? After all, you don’t know what you don’t know.
You could ask your colleagues, but they might be just as unskilled as you are. You could ask your boss, but if they knew how to improve your skills, surely they would have helped you do so before now, after all it’s in their best interest to have you performing at your peak. How about attending sales training seminars? Or buy books on sales and actually read them? You could get yourself a personal coach, but that can get a bit costly, especially for the really good ones. Or you could talk to me.
Sure, you can keep on going the same way you are now and keep on getting the same tired old results and keep on beating yourself up over your failures. Or you could take the time to figure out what’s really going on in your sales career and learn what skills you need to make yourself the best you can be. I can definitely help you with that. So what are you waiting for?
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This is very interesting! When thinking of your own individual sales process, its usually never from this angle. Growing up, my parents taught me how to handle money well. I have had small issues from time to time of "spending money I did not have," but who doesn't come across that in their lifetime?
ReplyDeleteI am in college and learning the sales process through the University Daily Kansan (the KU newspaper) as an account executive. I have learned quite a bit through the three semesters I have been on staff, but I have also learned perfection is almost impossible to obtain as a sales person in this industry. I have learned a great deal from my mother (a retired Pharmaceutical Rep of 14 years) as well. According to her, the times have changed with the ways to obtain successful sales. Researching and learning from others seems to be key!
By all means, take the best of what other people in the sales industry can teach you, but be sure that what you're learning from them IS the best and not just THEIR best. Researching is also helpful, and it certainly helps you find out how much you don't know and what the key things are that you must know and where to go to learn them. I wish you alll the best in your sales journey Kristen! cheers, Jo
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