self development
Does this work in real-life situation?
If you have been a martial arts instructor, you must have heard the question: "does this work in real-life situation?" many times. People see a technique and feel that it cannot be used in a real-life situation. It just seems unrealistic that the real-life situation would end up in a similar situation where you can perform the technique just the way as shown. The real-life situation cannot be as clean and you cannot predict the movements of your attacker in a way that you would get control of the situation as done in practice. Is this true? If yes, then why to practice unrealistic techniques?
You read a book about sales or attend to a training course. The instructor leads you through with sales techniques and sales pitches that sound easy to understand, but not realistic to use during your sales meeting. The stories he is introducing are nice and he sure has used the methods in real situations, but your customers and your industry are different. The conversation doesn't go the same way each time and the customer doesn't give you enough information as in his example to continue your sales pitch. Why attend these training courses, if they give you no real advice that can lead to you in becoming a better salesperson? Why waste time in learning theory, when reality is so much different?
Nobody can master a technique with just one repetition. The purpose of training a technique is to get to do repetition. When you can train a set form over and over again, you start paying attention to smaller details and start to be able to break the technique into pieces. The smaller pieces you can break the technique into, the more perfection training you can perform.
One of my best friends, started to skate when he was over 35 years old. He had done some skating as a teenager, but not that much. He wanted to learn tricks and be able to skate as the best do. He bought a detailed training course for few skating tricks and started to train. He quickly noticed that it didn't do him very good to try to perform the techniques as a whole, but in small pieces. In his training course, each trick was broken into 5 to 7 steps. He made more of his own and in the end had up to 25 steps. At first, he was just training his balance on the skateboard and trying to feel the difference. With each step, he was trying to learn the insight of that step. He diligently trained 2 hours each day and learned a trick that in 15 days, which according to his video instructor, takes normally over 4 months.
In sales, sometimes it feels boring to continue to ask open-ended questions, espcially when the prospect is not opening up. It might be hard to follow each step of SPIN-selling techniques or just to try to follow the set plan made by your sales manager. Often it feels, it would be better to talk about your product and how it would help the prospect. But how do you learn to lead the conversation, if you don't have a plan? What if you could learn to deal with each individual differently, but at the same time follow the same pattern of questions or sales tactics?
Coming back to friend and his skateboarding. He wasn't just trying to master each step, but the whole trick build from these steps. It would have been impossible for him to try to perform the whole trick, without undestanding how to control himself during the trick and getting the feeling you should get in his body, when doing the trick. The first steps were difficult to understand, but the last ones, were quick to learn. It became easier and easier for him to learn new tricks with this method. When he could control himself in a small step, he got better in controlling himself with the whole trick.
In the end, it is not about the technique in martial arts or the tactic in sales, which make you successful. It is the way you have build yourself up to understand the essence of the situation. You will get this skill by training the basics and learning new techniques, then applying the information a bit by bit in a real-life situation (or in martial arts, in more advanced training). Once you have mastered one technique, it is always easier to learn a new one. The form doesn't matter, the feeling insight) you have, does. In sales, when you know what kind of information you really need from the customer, in order to undestand what his current situation is and how you could help him to improve it, you will be more relaxed and diligently work until you have what you need. You will build trust and be able to secure the deal. Test yourself with different sales tactics and see if you can use them properly, even if they are new to you. When you understand the essence of each tactic, you will be very successful in sales too.
With form, comes control
Nobody can master a technique with just one repetition. The purpose of training a technique is to get to do repetition. When you can train a set form over and over again, you start paying attention to smaller details and start to be able to break the technique into pieces. The smaller pieces you can break the technique into, the more perfection training you can perform.
One of my best friends, started to skate when he was over 35 years old. He had done some skating as a teenager, but not that much. He wanted to learn tricks and be able to skate as the best do. He bought a detailed training course for few skating tricks and started to train. He quickly noticed that it didn't do him very good to try to perform the techniques as a whole, but in small pieces. In his training course, each trick was broken into 5 to 7 steps. He made more of his own and in the end had up to 25 steps. At first, he was just training his balance on the skateboard and trying to feel the difference. With each step, he was trying to learn the insight of that step. He diligently trained 2 hours each day and learned a trick that in 15 days, which according to his video instructor, takes normally over 4 months.
In sales, sometimes it feels boring to continue to ask open-ended questions, espcially when the prospect is not opening up. It might be hard to follow each step of SPIN-selling techniques or just to try to follow the set plan made by your sales manager. Often it feels, it would be better to talk about your product and how it would help the prospect. But how do you learn to lead the conversation, if you don't have a plan? What if you could learn to deal with each individual differently, but at the same time follow the same pattern of questions or sales tactics?
With control, comes understanding
Coming back to friend and his skateboarding. He wasn't just trying to master each step, but the whole trick build from these steps. It would have been impossible for him to try to perform the whole trick, without undestanding how to control himself during the trick and getting the feeling you should get in his body, when doing the trick. The first steps were difficult to understand, but the last ones, were quick to learn. It became easier and easier for him to learn new tricks with this method. When he could control himself in a small step, he got better in controlling himself with the whole trick.
In the end, it is not about the technique in martial arts or the tactic in sales, which make you successful. It is the way you have build yourself up to understand the essence of the situation. You will get this skill by training the basics and learning new techniques, then applying the information a bit by bit in a real-life situation (or in martial arts, in more advanced training). Once you have mastered one technique, it is always easier to learn a new one. The form doesn't matter, the feeling insight) you have, does. In sales, when you know what kind of information you really need from the customer, in order to undestand what his current situation is and how you could help him to improve it, you will be more relaxed and diligently work until you have what you need. You will build trust and be able to secure the deal. Test yourself with different sales tactics and see if you can use them properly, even if they are new to you. When you understand the essence of each tactic, you will be very successful in sales too.
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