I CAN FLY, I CAN FLY, I CAN FLY

 

If you wanted to learn how to fly where would you go to learn? Would you go to a gym? Maybe you would go to a driving school? No wait, I can’t believe I missed it, you would go to a cooking school!

Well I don’t know about you but I would go to the best darn pilot I could find. If Sully was available he is the one that I would be looking for to teach me. (For those of you with short memories or reading this 50 years in the future, Sully (Chesley Sullenberger) is the Pilot that safely landed a US Airways flight in the Hudson River after it hit a flock of birds shortly after take off in 2009, saving the lives of 115 passengers)

Doesn’t the same go for anything we want to learn? Shouldn’t we seek out the best teacher available to us? ABSOLUTELY! But there is more, once we find the best teacher available we should LISTEN to what they tell us and DO what they say to do.

If we all agree on this (If you don’t agree, please e mail me and explain why) then can someone tell me why so many sales reps have GREAT mentors and after being told what to do and how to do it they ignore the instructions and go about doing things their own way?

It baffles me to see this and it amazes me how often I see it. Please, this isn’t a posting to promote myself and my training ability, it is an observation that I see happening to me and many other top notch trainers and mentors.

When I talk to other trainers the number one thing reps do to frustrate them is to ignore what they are told. The number two thing that frustrates them are reps who tell them things like, “I know that might work for others, but I am different”, or “This is really good stuff, but I don’t think you understand my customers/territory”.

Although territories and customers are all different, in most cases, the basic skills taught by a sales trainer/mentor will work universally. Some may need to be tweaked a little and the delivery of some sales presentations may need to be personalized (actually I believe every rep needs to personalize any sales presentation they are taught) but the bulk of the training will transfer easily with minimum changes needing to be made.

Having the best available teacher teach you how to do something doesn’t guarantee success, it simply minimizes the risk of failure.

Lorin