How Adults–And Sales People–Learn (And Achieve)

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Not an especially sexy topic but one that every sales manager/ceo/leader should understand as we look to change results–and change behavior. (And for your extreme achievers, knowing how you learn might not be a bad idea).

In our sales training practice, we get asked in to companies to solve sales problems. That’s just what we do.

Every Sales Problem is a Behavioral Problem

But every sales problem (can’t get to the right person; can’t sell a premium price; can’t overcome the objections; can’t close; can’t prospect) all have to do with “behavioral issues.” And for behavior to change, you must understand how adults learn (to change their behavior).

Here are our findings:

  1. Relevancy. If you’re teaching someone, it had better be relevant to them. Ever sat in an all day training/presentation and been able to predict at 8:30am that it would be a total waste? Of course. It’s a waste because the teacher/facilitator never helped it be relevant. And it’s so easy for sales curriculum to be relevant. Just ask the learner, “What do you want to work on? What’s important to you?” Why is that question seldom asked?
  2. Problem-Focused. Every new piece of content you give to a sales person (or to yourself) had better solve a problem. And it’s more useful if there is a connection between the problem to be solved and the pain of the learner. How to do that? (OK, Sales Leaders here it goes- ASK! Yep, it’s that simple. Ask your team what they’re struggling with–and PRESTO, they’ll tell you.) Make sure that every core piece of curriculum you teach solves a problem.
  3. Technical. What I mean by this is that it has to be very tactical, technical and detailed. If you were teaching me how to post a blog, you wouldn’t just say, “Go get a blog and write.” There’s a lot more to it than that. Yet, when we’re teaching someone, we skip the details. Don’t skip the details. The learning is ALL IN THE DETAILS. When you’re coaching someone how to overcome prospect objections, don’t give them several one liners to combat it. Go through, in detail, how you would deliver the reaction–try out new words based on their personality.
  4. Attack The Real Resistance. This is a well-kept secret. It’s where most real income growth comes. It’s in the attention that should be focused on the thinking behind the actions–not just the actions. Sales is a thinking game. We call it the Inner Game–the emotional and mental constructs we’ve set up that limit our success. Unless you change an adults thinking behind the behavior, you will get only moderate change. (One example of this is our belief that the prospect should sell you. That’s a VERY different way of thinking. Yet, when you get that right, the words follow very easily.)
  5. Reinforcement. This is the #1 law of learning–the mother of all laws. Yes, Tiger Woods probably gets damn sick of practicing 6′ putts. But he knows that he’s made millions on 6′ putts. You probably don’t hear Roger Federer say to his coach “No, don’t need to practice that drop shot anymore. I got that one down.” You don’t hear that because great performers never stop practicing. What about you? How many hours have you practiced your Upfront Agreement in the last month? How many hours have you spent role-playing the handling of objections? How many hours have you spent practicing the asking questions in a way that allows the prospect to actually tell you the truth? (Here’s an idea no one will like: Spend less time making cold calls to people who don’t want to talk to you–and spend more time in the practice facility working on your game).

So now you have some idea of how adults (you) learn. If you’re a sales leader, keep this article next to you as you do your next sales meeting. If you’re spending all of your time on ‘Funnel Activity’ you’re wasting time. Work on these thing above–and you’ll be amazed at the invigoration of your team.

Adults do change behavior. We do have it in us. But stale PowerPoints don’t do it.