Episode #79: Educate Yourself In Sales

There are almost no sales courses at Universities. Maybe, in the USA somewhere, a University is offering something on selling, but it would be a rare bird amongst the academic ivory towers. By the way, who would be teaching this course and what do they know about the real world of sales? We can graduate with a bachelor degree, a masters degree or a Ph.D. in a wide range of business related subjects and never do one course on how to sell. Why is that? Selling is a process enveloped in a philosophy. You can teach that. We know, because as a training company, we do just that.

Okay, so you didn’t get any courses at varsity on selling. What about inside your company? Nothing happening there either? Are you in a Darwinian survival of the fittest environment, where it is up or out? The company won’t invest in you and you won’t invest in you either? The key path for being excellent in the professions is study. Doctors, engineers, architects, dentists etc., all have to keep brushing up their knowledge, even though they spent many long hard years at university to become qualified. “Nothing happens in business until a sale is made” underlines the importance of the profession of selling in society. Just like there are charlatans in any profession, there are fakers in selling as well. They won’t be around long, so let’s concentrate on the honest salespeople who are just not as skilled as they need to be

There is no excuse for we salespeople not to be on top of our game. The first thing to do is to take responsibility for ourselves. The onus for professional development is placed squarely with us and we are not beholden to some outside force, like the company we happen to work for. Today we have access to the greatest collection of readily available knowledge on sales in the history of the planet. Tremendous books, magazine articles, blogs, videos, podcasts - the list goes on and on. Yet so few access this cornucopia of wisdom and experience.

Up until 1939, if you were in sales, you could only get sales training from within your company. Dale Carnegie launched the first public classes for salespeople in that year and now there are thousands of providers all around the world offering help. We have no shortage of gurus touring the globe holding sales rallies to pep up the troops and get them fired up to do better.

We don’t lack for information. The problem is you need to have the smarts and the desire to want to access the information and then more importantly, to want to apply it and adapt it to your own situation. We can read the books and watch the videos etc., but we need practice to make it part of us. We have colleagues in the sales team we can be practicing with, doing role plays in the morning before seeing clients. Yet so many don't take the chance to do that. Knowing a questioning structure is great, but mastering the semantics and cadence of how to ask those questions are quite another thing.

Every major sports star warms up before the match. Ikebana masters strip the flower stems themselves to get their mind into the right frame. Shodo masters grind their own ink for the same reason, rather than delegating the task to their underlings. The karate master meditates before starting training. This is part of their mental preparation. Salespeople also need good mental preparation, but they are not taking advantage of all that is available to them. If we want to be great then we need to polish our craft. We also need to be searching through newspapers, magazines, web sites, social media for relevant information that a client would value and we should be offering this as part of our service as a partner in seeing the buyer's business succeed.

What surprises me are salespeople who are failing to meet their targets who won’t come to the office early to study sales together with their colleagues. They turn up at work at the appointed time as usual and then flounder through the day, making no or few sales. They repeat this process year after year, always hoping to land a whale, that they hope will solve all of their sales quota issues. Whale obsession has been a sickness amongst some salespeople, who haven’t worked it out yet that skill acquisition and luck are polar opposites. One you can control and the other you can’t. They prefer the one they cannot control and then whine about the lack of results. When your whale is not landed you are left with nothing.

Building skills builds the lead pipeline, which in turn leads to better conversations with buyers. The solutions presented are better, the client hesitations are handled more smoothly and the order is always asked for. None of this is rocket science but it is difficult and it needs practice to make it work. We need to commit to make the time to study, to do the role plays, to keep pushing ourselves to become better at serving our clients. That is what it means to be a professional in sales. The path to professionalism starts from within. When we watch that video, read that article or book, listen to that podcast we have gained some momentum. Let’s begin.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years.

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.