Dedication – that’s what you need
One of the most enduring and dangerous myths in business is the myth of the natural salesman. The guy who could sell anything to anyone.
The problem is not that such a person doesn’t exist – if he does, I’d love to meet him (or her). Instead, the problem is that those of us who don’t see ourselves as naturals assume we can’t make it in sales. And because we assume we can’t make it, we don’t try. We don’t practice, we don’t learn, and we certainly don’t expose ourselves to sales situations where we’re inevitably going to fail.
My 16 years in consulting and training, and my years in business beforehand, have taught me that any skill can be learned. I’ve seen accountants who could barely speak in public become highly professional presenters. I’ve seen business owners who struggled to read their bank statements become skilled at understanding complex financial analyses. And I’ve seen nervous lawyers learn how to network confidently and effectively.
What all these skills require in order to become proficient is practice.
Not just any practice – but goal directed practice with feedback. And lots of it.
According to Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University; it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate praciice to become truly proficient at a skill.
When it comes to selling skills, practice can partially be done in the classroom through role playing. But it primarily needs to be done in the real world. People who want to get better at selling need to sell (or at least to try). And that means they are going to experience rejection and failure. Time and time again.
One of the primary reasons there are so few really expert salespeople is that it’s actually really painful to develop the skills needed. Golfers, tennis players, spreadsheet experts and professional presenters all have the luxury of being able to practice in private and get feedback from trusted coaches & advisors. Salespeople learn in public and largely get feedback by being rejected by clients.
What kind of mad person would put themselves through that? Only the truly dedicated.
And that, to me, is the difference that makes the difference. The dedication to put in the work, to put up with the rejection, to do the learning, to keep coming back and eventually, to get better and better.
Expert salespeople aren’t born. They make themselves. And they have my utmost respect.
My 16 years in consulting and training, and my years in business beforehand, have taught me that any skill can be learned-
ok, lets assume talk skill-but its like the same as an artist- to paint- can U teach me, for example to paint-or to talk
I’d say a couple of things. The first isn’t very controversial – the second is perhaps more so:
Firstly, many people could teach you to paint very well – if you had the dedication to put in the 10,000+ hours of practice it takes to become an expert. Perhaps you wouldn’t become a master – but you would become very, very good. The differentiatior is not your initial “talent” but your willingness to put in the hours.
More controversially – perhaps with practice you could become a master. Anders Erickson and others’ research has shown that in many, many fields, the idea we all have of “natural talent” is misplaced. There’s a ton of evidence from chess players to musicians that the people who end up performing the best are simply those who practice the most (and practice in the right way).
If you read Geoff Colvin’s excellent book “Talent is Overrated” you’ll see tons of example of how people we think of as naturally talented (Mozart & Tiger Woods for example) actually started dedicated and frequent practice at a very young age. By the time they were “discovered” as talents they’d put in thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hours of practice – more than most people do in a lifetime.
Ian