Good Morning!
As I have alluded to over the past few months, I’ve been taking guitar lessons with my daughter, Emma, via zoom. Very quickly, I realized the direct correlation between that experience and the coaching that I do with my sales reps and selling owners. This is the third of three lessons that tie the two together.
Planting 12 Trees, One at a Time
My guitar instructor, Jeff, made a fascinating statement recently: “If I asked you to plant 12 trees and give you an hour to do it, I’d want you to completely finish planting one tree and then move on to the next instead of digging 12 holes, inserting 12 trees, adding fertilizer, etc.”
That changed everything for me.
Similar to sales, learning the guitar is hard. Wicked hard. There is a phenomenal amount of information to process, skills and techniques to learn, and practice to bring it all together. Last week, I talked to about the value of organizing all of the lessons and building a plan to improve. But here was an additional thought process.
Think of the selling skills that you lack or perhaps there’s one you are trying to add. It is easy to be overwhelmed and feel the need to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Instead, try mastering one sale skill by focusing hard on only that subject. Once you have it down cold, move on to the next. For those of us with short attention spans, this sales tip is a godsend.
Start by making a list of everything you need to learn. Then, take the one that interests you the most and pour 100% of your attention into becoming better at it. Day after day, work on only that skill. When you’ve mastered it, move on to the next.
It’s a different way of looking at things but it’s a great way to keep from getting overwhelmed.
