I work with a magnifcent Danish client these days integrating SPIN® Selling skills into their selling DNA.

One center piece for making this challenging learning journey a success is embedded in their mantra:

“Do your reps!”

Why is that?

Having worked with change managment and durable behaviour change for two decades, I have experienced what not to do, and how to waste millions of dollars in a very short timespan.

The following five steps for learning how to master a new skill might interest you:

1.Remember that practice has one objective: to improve your behavioural performance. “People who play tennis once a week for years don’t get any better if they do the same thing each time,’ psychology professor Anders Ericsson, Florida State University has said. “Deliberate practice is about changing your performance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time.”

Q1: Do you reach a bit higher in your sales practice every day ❓

2.Repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat your behavioural practice again. Repetition matters. Basketball champs don’t shoot ten free throws at the end of team practice; they shoot five hundred.

Q2:’Do you do your reps❓

3.Reflect and seek constant, critical feedback on your own behavioural performance. If you don’t know how well you’re doing, you won’t know what to improve.

Q3: Do you have a behavioural success model as a reference for your performance❓

4.Focus ruthlessly on what behavioural area you need help first. While many of us work on what we’re already good at, says Ericsson, “those who get better are aware fully aware of how well they perform and prioritise on their specific areas for improvement.

Q4: Do you know what, how and why you need help in this area❓

5.Prepare for your process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That’s why so few people commit to it, but that’s why it works.

Q5: Can you visualise and sense how your optimal daily practice will look like, and how you will plan to make it painful NOT to overcome exhaustion when it occurs❓

Enjoy your reps towards sales mastery 🥇