Some people say that education is never wasted. I completely disagree. My feeling is that unapplied education may be the biggest waste of all. That's why the LAIR Method, our 4 step success cycle is so powerful
David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about education, specifically education designed to help businesses sell better and how that education is always wasted unless it's being applied. Welcome Chris!
Chris: Hi David. This is a fascinating point and it's interesting that you would take a well-known phrase like education has never wasted and completely turn it on its head. Are you just trying to be provocative?
David: No, not at all. I think the reason that I'm saying it is because I really believe it. Every time I heard that expression, even as a child, I always questioned it. I'm like, what do you mean education is never wasted? It seems to me that if you learn something that you never ever use, then that's kind of a waste. I think it's part of the reason why as a child there were some classes that I just couldn't get into because I felt like I was never going to use this information. Now, I'm not suggesting that people use that as an excuse not to learn stuff. On the contrary, what I'm saying is that if you're learning something, particularly something that's designed to help you to sell better or improve your business or improve your life, then definitely learn it to the best of your ability, but make sure that you implement it as well.
Chris: It's a great, great point. If we're not applying it, there's just not a whole lot of point in it is there?
David: None that I can see.
Chris: So rather than learning what to do, a lot of salespeople simply wing it. What's the likelihood of that working? I mean, that will work won’t it?
David: Well it might, but it's pretty much slim to none. Out of a hundred salespeople who wing it. There might be a small percentage who may do great with it. It's entirely possible, but the people who actually are taught: what to do, how to do it, who to approach, how to approach them, what to say, how to say it - have a much better likelihood of success because they're not trying to reinvent the wheel. And that's where, particularly in a career like sales, if you don't take the time to learn how to do it right, you're going to spend many months or years figuring it out and essentially blowing it on high quality prospects. If you're in front of a good quality prospect and you don't know what to say and you're just winging it and saying the wrong things, then you can spend a long time getting it wrong. Not selling a lot of stuff, giving your company a black eye and really not valuing the time of the person you're interacting with.
Chris: Well, it's interesting that you say that because almost the underlying assumption is that I'm a sales guy and I ought to be doing this on my own; and I'll betcha you think that managers probably should be doing more to help their salespeople be better sales people?
David: Well, I think it's certainly helpful if you are a sales manager and you have the salespeople under you, then yes, certainly helping the salespeople you have should be a critical and important part of your job. And a lot of sales managers are good at what they do and they really help their sales people to grow. There are some who sell as well and sometimes there's a bit of a competition there and they always want to sort of show how they're better than the people they work with. That sort of dynamic is rarely good in sales, but when you get a sales manager who really understands that his or her job is to help the people that they're working with to become better at it and to establish rapport with more high quality prospects and to close those s...
