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[E82] Q&A Week: How long does it take to become great at selling?
In this episode the one question I
tackle is “How long does it take to become great at selling?”
To be great at anything takes patience.
But how much time should that be when working on your sales craft?
Will it take 10,000 hours?
Check out this episode for my take on
it.
Episode 82 – Transcript
Hi and welcome to the sales
experience podcast.
This is episode 82 I am
tackling some sales questions that I have seen online, been asked, dealt with
on many occasions with sales teams and if you’re not subscribed to the show,
make sure you do that. You can find it, iTunes, Stitcher, Sound cloud, Spotify,
Google play.
You can find it on the cutter
consulting group.com website. Just go anywhere that you’re downloading
podcasts, look for the sales experience podcast and make sure to subscribe if
possible, leave a rating, leave a review. All of that helps other people find
it for now.
Let’s jump into today’s
question. So the one that I get a lot is how long does it take to become a
great at selling? Here’s the interesting thing about this question. Usually what
happens is when people ask this, they are trying to find the shortcut. They are
trying to find the fastest way to get to greatness within anything in
particular within sales.
Now there is the fundamentals
that Malcolm Gladwell talks about with 10,000 hours. If you want to be a master
at anything, it takes 10,000 hours and not just hours, not just time, but
actually quality focused effort on improving anything that you’re working on,
whether it’s woodworking or car racing or arts and crafts or sales conversations,
persuasion, being a public speaker, being a writer, whatever that is, it takes
10,000 hours to become a master by focused effort that’s on improving.
Now when it comes to sales, I think if you want to be truly, truly great at sales, it’s still that 10,000 hours and really its 10,000 hours of conversations in selling environments and looking at and focusing.
Also in that 10,000 hours, it’s reading books, listening to audio, listening to podcasts, watching videos, absorbing and doing everything that you can to improve the craft of selling, persuasion, conversations, problem solving, whatever that is that fits your personality.
Now, short of those 10,000
hours, which could take anywhere between five, seven, 10 years depending on
what you’re putting into it every single day to be great at selling. I do
honestly feel it takes years. It takes a few years to be great.
At selling where you’ve
really had enough at bats in sales that you then have looked at after the fact
you’ve replayed film, like I talked about early on in the podcast and like week
two where you’re not just having calls, not just having interactions, but
you’re actually focused on trying to learn and improve like a professional
athlete would do where they’re watching game film afterwards and trying to get
better all the time.
So the key is not just
putting in the effort, not just putting in the seat time, but it’s also looking
at how to improve. So to be great at selling, it’s going to take years of
conversations and really seeing a lot of different scenarios with a lot of
different prospects and learning how to engage and have conversations with a
lot of different, some sales professionals enter the world of sales, a little
bit of a leg up.
Maybe they’d been doing some
type of sales since they were a kid. Maybe they had a lemonade stand, maybe
they went door to door and sold things, whatever that might be. There’s some
people are going to enter it with a head start.
I don’t think there’s any
natural born salespeople, but I do think there’s some people who start selling
in their mind in their life early, early on, like from an early age. If you’re
the type of person who had lemonade stands and sold things or tried to wash
people’s cars or mow their lawns or babysit whatever that was for you, if you
did that, then you’re going to progress much faster when you get into the world
of sales.
If you didn’t do any of that,
that’s fine. When you go into sales, it’s just going to take a lot more effort
and time to get caught up to where you could be.
So unfortunately, to answer
this question in the most vague way possible, I don’t know how long it will
take for you to be great depending on where you’re at, what you’re looking to
accomplish and what skills you’re bringing and what experience you’re bringing
with you to the table when you enter into sales.
But I know it’s going to take
a few years, but let me give you some practical tips more than just a vague,
terrible timeline so that you can get to greatness as quick as possible. The
first thing is self-awareness. I’ll tell you the number one thing and I talk
about it a lot on this show or if you’ve ever chatted with me.
Then it’s all about
self-awareness. Learn what your personality is like, what your behaviour is
like, what you like, what you don’t like, preferences, how you would like to
sell, how you like to buy.
It’s very important to first
understand how you are as a buyer, as a prospect. Go through the behaviours
weeks of episodes that I did. There’s one in there. The golden rule is wrong.
That one is important but no matter what the first step is self-awareness.
Doesn’t matter how long
you’ve been in sales. If you’re new in sales, if you’ve been in for a long
time, it doesn’t matter your age. You could be in your forties or 50s you could
be in your 20s doesn’t matter. Self-Awareness is so important. First start with
self-awareness.
You’ve got to know who you
are, what you like, what you don’t like. You’ve got to understand how you like
to buy because that’s going to impact how good you are at sales. If you can
overcome your natural tendency to treat others like you want to be treated as a
prospect, as a salesperson.
So first is self-awareness.
Then find people find, I won’t say Gurus, but find somebody else out there in
the world whose written books, who has a podcast as well or YouTube videos or
audio books or training courses, whatever that might be that fits your
personality sales style.
You’ve got to focus on that
because what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to buy a course or start
listening to somebody online and their personality is completely different from
yours and you feel like you’ve got to turn your square peg into a round peg so
you can fit into the round hole of sales and that’s not the case.
Now, there’s always things to
learn from other people. For example, someone like grant Car done, he is the
opposite of me. I don’t really like that style. I would never buy from somebody
who tried to sell me in that style.
However, when I listen to
them, there’s some things I pick up from him that works really well and I can
apply. There’s other people who I gravitate more towards and learn more because
it’s more in my style and I appreciate that more for you.
You may be a grant Car done
style and that’s perfect if it’s not. One of the things I found is it can cause
a lot of stress internally. I know speaking for myself, when I’m over here and
I’m listening to someone over there and I’m like, I can’t do that, or I don’t
like that, so make sure you stay within your framework of what you like and how
you think you want to sell and be successful.
There are always examples.
There’s enough books, horses, trainers, Gurus, podcasts, YouTube channels out
there for every different sales style to fit how you are, so don’t try to
change yourself.
Try to find ways to maximize
who you are. Maximize your strengths. Don’t change your strength, focus on your
strengths. If you care about people, if you’re into asking questions, solving
problems, you know, then go that route and find the best ways to maximize that
and then go down that path as hard as you can. Digest as much as possible.
Read, listened to as much as
possible. Put things into practice. Get your sales manager to help you after
phone calls or after meetings, after visits, after appointments, and go through
what happened, what worked, what didn’t work, and keep working on your craft.
That is the best way to be great as a know who you are. Be figuring out the way to maximize those strengths and see constantly get feedback, constantly improve, constantly treat it like a professional treats their job.
Hope that helps. Keep going online, sending me questions. I always love hearing from people. Again, you can go to the cutter consulting group.com website. You can find me on LinkedIn.
Always, remember that
everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.
View all episodes
By Jason Cutter
4.9
3535 ratings
In this episode the one question I
tackle is “How long does it take to become great at selling?”
To be great at anything takes patience.
But how much time should that be when working on your sales craft?
Will it take 10,000 hours?
Check out this episode for my take on
it.
Episode 82 – Transcript
Hi and welcome to the sales
experience podcast.
This is episode 82 I am
tackling some sales questions that I have seen online, been asked, dealt with
on many occasions with sales teams and if you’re not subscribed to the show,
make sure you do that. You can find it, iTunes, Stitcher, Sound cloud, Spotify,
Google play.
You can find it on the cutter
consulting group.com website. Just go anywhere that you’re downloading
podcasts, look for the sales experience podcast and make sure to subscribe if
possible, leave a rating, leave a review. All of that helps other people find
it for now.
Let’s jump into today’s
question. So the one that I get a lot is how long does it take to become a
great at selling? Here’s the interesting thing about this question. Usually what
happens is when people ask this, they are trying to find the shortcut. They are
trying to find the fastest way to get to greatness within anything in
particular within sales.
Now there is the fundamentals
that Malcolm Gladwell talks about with 10,000 hours. If you want to be a master
at anything, it takes 10,000 hours and not just hours, not just time, but
actually quality focused effort on improving anything that you’re working on,
whether it’s woodworking or car racing or arts and crafts or sales conversations,
persuasion, being a public speaker, being a writer, whatever that is, it takes
10,000 hours to become a master by focused effort that’s on improving.
Now when it comes to sales, I think if you want to be truly, truly great at sales, it’s still that 10,000 hours and really its 10,000 hours of conversations in selling environments and looking at and focusing.
Also in that 10,000 hours, it’s reading books, listening to audio, listening to podcasts, watching videos, absorbing and doing everything that you can to improve the craft of selling, persuasion, conversations, problem solving, whatever that is that fits your personality.
Now, short of those 10,000
hours, which could take anywhere between five, seven, 10 years depending on
what you’re putting into it every single day to be great at selling. I do
honestly feel it takes years. It takes a few years to be great.
At selling where you’ve
really had enough at bats in sales that you then have looked at after the fact
you’ve replayed film, like I talked about early on in the podcast and like week
two where you’re not just having calls, not just having interactions, but
you’re actually focused on trying to learn and improve like a professional
athlete would do where they’re watching game film afterwards and trying to get
better all the time.
So the key is not just
putting in the effort, not just putting in the seat time, but it’s also looking
at how to improve. So to be great at selling, it’s going to take years of
conversations and really seeing a lot of different scenarios with a lot of
different prospects and learning how to engage and have conversations with a
lot of different, some sales professionals enter the world of sales, a little
bit of a leg up.
Maybe they’d been doing some
type of sales since they were a kid. Maybe they had a lemonade stand, maybe
they went door to door and sold things, whatever that might be. There’s some
people are going to enter it with a head start.
I don’t think there’s any
natural born salespeople, but I do think there’s some people who start selling
in their mind in their life early, early on, like from an early age. If you’re
the type of person who had lemonade stands and sold things or tried to wash
people’s cars or mow their lawns or babysit whatever that was for you, if you
did that, then you’re going to progress much faster when you get into the world
of sales.
If you didn’t do any of that,
that’s fine. When you go into sales, it’s just going to take a lot more effort
and time to get caught up to where you could be.
So unfortunately, to answer
this question in the most vague way possible, I don’t know how long it will
take for you to be great depending on where you’re at, what you’re looking to
accomplish and what skills you’re bringing and what experience you’re bringing
with you to the table when you enter into sales.
But I know it’s going to take
a few years, but let me give you some practical tips more than just a vague,
terrible timeline so that you can get to greatness as quick as possible. The
first thing is self-awareness. I’ll tell you the number one thing and I talk
about it a lot on this show or if you’ve ever chatted with me.
Then it’s all about
self-awareness. Learn what your personality is like, what your behaviour is
like, what you like, what you don’t like, preferences, how you would like to
sell, how you like to buy.
It’s very important to first
understand how you are as a buyer, as a prospect. Go through the behaviours
weeks of episodes that I did. There’s one in there. The golden rule is wrong.
That one is important but no matter what the first step is self-awareness.
Doesn’t matter how long
you’ve been in sales. If you’re new in sales, if you’ve been in for a long
time, it doesn’t matter your age. You could be in your forties or 50s you could
be in your 20s doesn’t matter. Self-Awareness is so important. First start with
self-awareness.
You’ve got to know who you
are, what you like, what you don’t like. You’ve got to understand how you like
to buy because that’s going to impact how good you are at sales. If you can
overcome your natural tendency to treat others like you want to be treated as a
prospect, as a salesperson.
So first is self-awareness.
Then find people find, I won’t say Gurus, but find somebody else out there in
the world whose written books, who has a podcast as well or YouTube videos or
audio books or training courses, whatever that might be that fits your
personality sales style.
You’ve got to focus on that
because what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to buy a course or start
listening to somebody online and their personality is completely different from
yours and you feel like you’ve got to turn your square peg into a round peg so
you can fit into the round hole of sales and that’s not the case.
Now, there’s always things to
learn from other people. For example, someone like grant Car done, he is the
opposite of me. I don’t really like that style. I would never buy from somebody
who tried to sell me in that style.
However, when I listen to
them, there’s some things I pick up from him that works really well and I can
apply. There’s other people who I gravitate more towards and learn more because
it’s more in my style and I appreciate that more for you.
You may be a grant Car done
style and that’s perfect if it’s not. One of the things I found is it can cause
a lot of stress internally. I know speaking for myself, when I’m over here and
I’m listening to someone over there and I’m like, I can’t do that, or I don’t
like that, so make sure you stay within your framework of what you like and how
you think you want to sell and be successful.
There are always examples.
There’s enough books, horses, trainers, Gurus, podcasts, YouTube channels out
there for every different sales style to fit how you are, so don’t try to
change yourself.
Try to find ways to maximize
who you are. Maximize your strengths. Don’t change your strength, focus on your
strengths. If you care about people, if you’re into asking questions, solving
problems, you know, then go that route and find the best ways to maximize that
and then go down that path as hard as you can. Digest as much as possible.
Read, listened to as much as
possible. Put things into practice. Get your sales manager to help you after
phone calls or after meetings, after visits, after appointments, and go through
what happened, what worked, what didn’t work, and keep working on your craft.
That is the best way to be great as a know who you are. Be figuring out the way to maximize those strengths and see constantly get feedback, constantly improve, constantly treat it like a professional treats their job.
Hope that helps. Keep going online, sending me questions. I always love hearing from people. Again, you can go to the cutter consulting group.com website. You can find me on LinkedIn.
Always, remember that
everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.