Breaking Bad Selling Habits: Where Sales Training & Coaching Intersect (Selling to Consumers

I was working with a client's sales representative who had been selling in his industry for seventeen years. Despite this wealth of sales experience, he was a very marginal sales performer at best.

"Ben" was skeptical about the sales system I had created for his employer and all their salespeople. This isn't unusual, of course, because in my industry we not only need to share sales knowledge, we need to "sell" our client companies and individuals on learning, embracing, and implementing sales knowledge we provide. Ben was being resistant at worst and leery at best. So I asked him a few questions:

1. Are you willing to change anything in your sales behaviors? (He said "sure.")
2. Do you know which sales behaviors to change to get a better results? (He said "not really.")
3. If, after seeing you in action, I find five sales behaviors that you would be well-served to change, would you be willing to implement these changes in your selling? (He said "yep").
4. If at first you don't experience immediate success, will you be willing to implement these new behaviors 500 times before you give up?

To this last question he laughed, and then he said "no." So I said...

"How many sales appointments do you suppose you've been on in the last month, Ben?"

Ben said he'd probably been on 65.

"Ben, how many sales appointments do you suppose you were on the month before that?"

Ben again guessed about 65.

"And the month before that?" I asked.

Ben said 65.

"So Ben, is it safe to say that you've been on about 780 sales appointments in the last twelve months?" (12 x 65 = 780)

Ben thought that was a realistic number.

"And the year before that, Ben?"

He thought 780 was good for that year, too, and the year before that and the year before that.

"So in your seventeen-year sales career, you've been on approximately 13,260 sales appointments. Ben, does that seem about right to you?" (17 years x 780 appointments - 13,260).

Ben agreed.

"Ben...You've been ingraining your incorrect sales methodology on your conscious and subconscious mind during 13,260 sales appointments spread across seventeen years. Don't you think that you owe it to yourself to try these new sales behaviors a mere 500 times before you give up on them?

Ben stopped and thought and went silent. I could see the gears grinding away. Eventually, Ben's eyes made contact with mine and he said, "Yes."

"Ben, do you mean it? You'll try these new things I'm going to teach you FIVE HUNDRED TIMES before you give up on them? You REALLY mean it, Ben?"

Ben sad, "Yes, Skip, I do mean it. It's just that I don't know if I'll be able to do it."

"Ben, how would you rate your sales compared to the others in your company? Let's say on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best?"

Ben surprised me and said "a two."

"So are you telling me you've been a marginally effective salesperson for seventeen years?"

"Yes. Marginal. Yes," replied Ben.

"Would you like to be better than marginal?"

"Yes, Skip, I would, I would, yes" was Ben's reply.

"So let's do it. Let's have you become better than marginal. Will you join me?" I asked.

He paused. And then he said "Yes."

And thus started the first step of a long journey for Ben to break old sales habits...ones it took him seventeen years to "perfect." And it was incredibly hard for him, but luckily his sales manager took up the sales coaching torch where I left off. Last I heard, Ben was still with the company and had improved several notches (hey.,.several notches is nothing to sneeze at! If 422 sales employees all improve by several notches you've got some serious revenue that's being produced with these new notches!).

Sales learning can change lives. It can change the lives of individuals and it can change the lives of companies. Sales training provides sales learning. Sales learning is a process, and it requires constant coaching to bring about the behavioral changes that drive sales improvement.