Yesterday, I ran into an old high school buddy of mine. He and I had faced each other across a wrestling mat twice in junior high, before I decided that wrestling wasn’t my thing (I won two matches – both against him), and so when we were assigned to be partners in Weightlifting class in high school, we were initially less than excited. As it turned out, we became great friends and weightlifting partners all through high school, because we pushed each other hard.
When we began, in my sophomore year (Freshmen were in junior high in my district), I weighed 160 pounds and could bench press 120 pounds. Weak. But, Charles and I worked hard, pushed each other hard, and by graduation, I weighed 170 pounds – and could bench press 240 pounds. In my weightlifting experience, there are several lessons that apply to selling.
First of all, when we started lifting, we focused on milestones. I’ll be honest. We focused on milestones that LOOKED good. For instance, when we started lifting, we put the “small” weights (25 pounds and down) on the bar because that’s all we could lift. The bar weighed 45 pounds by itself; the biggest weights were 45 pounds. Hence, to LOOK really good, we worked our way up to lifting at least 135 pounds. I remember how good it felt the first time I put those ‘big’ 45 pounders on the bar and got it all the way up off my chest.
As we continued forward, we focused on other milestones – for instance, adding the 10 pound weights to the 45s, then the 25 pounders, etc. Again, every milestone was based on how it looked, but it WORKED for us. Charles and I both built strength (not just on bench press – but this is the one that I remember well) based on those milestones. The last semester of high school, we pushed each other hard to be able to lift 225 pounds. Why? Because that meant that we could put TWO 45 pounders on each side. Yep, a visual milestone. As I recall, it was in the last month of school that we each managed to hit that mark.
LESSON NUMBER ONE: To improve, you need milestones to get where you want to go.
Another lesson that I remember is how, over the summer, our strength would atrophy because we weren’t lifting every day. That should seem obvious – but that first lift of junior year it was quite a revelation to put my previous spring’s maximum on the bar and find out that I couldn’t budge it. And that was with doing pretty physical work over the summer. In fact, between junior year and senior year, I made it a point to lift every week at a minimum.
LESSON NUMBER TWO: If you’re not going forward, you’re going backward. I couldn’t simply maintain a level of strength – I was either building strength or losing it.
As it turned out, I did actually gain strength over that summer. Not much, but a little. Then, after high school, I stopped weightlifting. The results were, well, predictable. That 240 pound bench press is but a distant memory, and even though I’ve started lifting again, I’m still firmly stuck at junior year levels. That’s a blow to the ego – but I do believe that, at some point, I’ll pop those four 45-pounders off my chest again. It’ll just take awhile. In fact, I think it’s going to take longer to get BACK there than it did to GET there.
LESSON NUMBER THREE: It’s easier to STAY in shape than it is to GET in shape.
One challenge I see in my chosen profession is that too many salespeople get complacent. They don’t continue to develop their skills, find new customers, and seek out new challenges that make them better. They stop reading books, they don’t train or retrain, they don’t even conduct meaningful business reviews.
And, like my strength when I stopped lifting, their customer base shrinks – and they can’t understand why.
Today’s customer is more demanding than the customers of 10, 15, 20, or 30 years ago. They are better informed, better educated, and more savvy in terms of how they deal with salespeople. In dealing with them, you have several options:
- You can take the low road and try to win on low price. That’s never a permanent solution.
- You can keep doing the same things you did in the past, and watch the customers move past you and on to other salespeople.
- You can update and improve your skills to meet and exceed today’s customer’s expectations.
Today’s salesperson must be able to have a higher level of customer dialogue than salespeople of the past. You must be able to get to the need behind the need. You must be able to diagnose and prescribe the EXACT solution to the customer’s problem. And then you must use advanced persuasion techniques to win the business. The old stuff won’t get it done.
And, as my example above shows, if you’re not in constant development, you won’t be able to keep up with the marketplace. So, of the three examples above, which salesperson are you going to be?
