I just came back from the Thunder Hill 25 Hour Endurance Auto Race where I saw some interesting comparisons to how racing routines could well benefit our sales routines. The race crew that adopted me was made up of experienced drivers and support crew, all properly ‘trained’ at one point or another on their specific function. What I noticed was the hours of practice we spent as a crew going over every minute aspect of each task to the point where each member practiced to perfection.

There was no race without practice and everybody understood that.

There was no bitching about ‘practicing’ or ‘I already know that’ or ‘I don’t have time’ responses that are all too common from sales organizations. The other interesting point I observed about myself that even though I thought I knew it all, I learned tons from each practice: about my skills, specific crew members and our overall capability. What looked easy wasn’t so. All valuable stuff you would want to know heading into a exhausting 25 hour race.

Too many organizations don’t ‘practice’ selling and ignore their crews.

I’ve often been frustrated with the lack of results with sales training.  When I think back on it, what I was really missing was sales practice. Sales practice has to be a defacto element of the sales routine: you have got to keep it continually replenished with streams of new learning, strategies and ideas.

The better you are, the more you practice.

Practice is a continual process that builds one technique at a time.  The complicated notes and nuances of human relationship skills, product intelligence, negotiation tactics and persistence take practice. This couldn’t be more accurate for anything that takes a certain level of skill to master and sales is no exception. The interesting thing about professional racers is that the better they are the more they must practice.

It seems to be a prevalent attitude of sales pros that the better they are, the less practice because they already know it. This syndrome might be the single biggest mistake in your selling or management career. Because what really happens is that these salespeople, like racers, progress only to the level of their natural talent, then level out and begin to drop.

Like racing instructors, they will all tell you their ‘practice’ of the basics when training students has always come back to help them in difficult situations. Like pit crews, support crews are no longer this behind-the-scenes personnel who no one sees, recognizes or knows. Now they are in many cases integral to the overall sale.

Better means more.

If you don’t quite buy this theory, then you only have to look at any pro. You don’t really buy the idea that points leader Jimmie Johnson, of NASCAR fame, to maintain his superior game skills, could do this despite practicing less and less? No, it’s not even reasonable. The better a sales person or manager you are, the more practice time you need.

I know some people will wince here but my experience is sales and at the track rubs against popular human relations theory: keep management and resources for the failing sales staff to a bare minimum. Conversely, the majority of their time and money must be spent with the A players. It’s hard to beat this logic. The pity is that a lot of really good talent is ignored while a mountain of effort and attention is spent on people who simply do not have the talent to become even adequate salespeople or racers.

Selling practice builds self-confidence.

You would race on a track without practicing the difficult turns. Ditto sales: practice builds self-confidence in handling difficult situations. Too many reps, even the experienced ones, avoid or fudge difficult situations through a lack of confidence. Most salespeople ignore some prospects because of a lack of simpatico, lack of knowledge or familiarity of particular circumstances, or just a plain and simple lack of interest.

Psychological ‘reality’ shock.

It’s simply not reasonable to assume that any available sales person, or manager for that matter, can play to a client… maybe it is because they don’t have, pardon the pun, the right pitch. Look at any Formula 1 racing team that sets the ‘practice’ bar that any sales organization would be wise to adopt:

• ‘A’ level sales personnel, like the very best drivers, must come prepared and dialed into practice. This means only outstanding sales and support personnel are included and are not distracted by day to day crap that is seemingly more important.
• Drivers and crews are expected to generate better times. What a concept: practice and we expect you to generate better sales volume!
• Practice conditions must prepare the drivers and team for the psychological reality of live races. In sales, the practice routines must match the real world circumstances.

CRM Experts Tips

• Add Practice and/or Team Selling meetings to your standard activity menu for every pipeline account.
• Many CRM’s provide for document storage/sharing: Upload practice topics, agendas and guides.
• Share the wealth of business intelligence: Search the database for sales and proposals made to the same or similar companies in your organization.
• Include support personnel in the account access rights where appropriate: get them dialed into the issues and solutions.