Avoid Pitfalls in Mastering a Selling Skill

In the post "Can You Master Your Selling Skills?, I explained the stages that your mind goes through when it acquires and masters a skill. Then, in the post "How to Master a Key Selling Skill", I explained the five step process that allows you to make the transition from theoretical knowledge to mastery. In this final post in this series, I'm going to reveal the pitfalls that keep reps from mastering new selling skill -- and how to avoid them.

The reason sales reps find it so difficult to master a new skill is that they fall into one or more of the following pitfalls:

• Undercommitment. Sales reps sometimes underestimate the amount of ELAPSED time it will take to change a behavior or acquire a skill. For example, changing a habitual negative thought (like "I'm not good with people") to a positive alternative (like "people like me when they know me") can be accomplished in two weeks of daily affirmations. Changing something major can take months of practice. Fix: set aside a small amount of time each day over a long enough period of time so that you're certain you're putting enough attention on the issue.
• Over-enthusiasm. Most sales who are committed to improving their careers attempt to make changes in multiple areas, makes it difficult or impossible to focus on single one change long enough to achieve mastery. Fix: pick a single behavior that you wish to change, and then focus on that until it becomes automatic. Then move to the next. Over time, your list of automatic skills will far exceed what you would ever been able to achieve through the usual scattershot "crash course" that's the mainstay of sales training and self-improvement.
• Distraction. If you don't practice the new skill until you reach stage 6, so the change in behavior never becomes automatic. And that requires single-minded focus. Unfortunately, that kind of focus is difficult to achieve in today's business distracting business world, which is full of interruptions constantly vying for your attention. Fix: Set aside a very small amount of time each day - hopefully less than ten minutes to focus on the change in behavior that you seek. More time than that, and it's likely that other priorities will intrude.
• Stopping Too Soon. Because the new behavior is awkward at first, it's easy to give up, conclude that the new behavior is "not right for you," or simply too much bother to pursue. Then, when the behavior becomes easier, you'll be tempted to neglect practice, thinking (incorrectly) that you've mastered the skill. In fact, the skill is NOT mastered until it is automatic. Fix: No matter what, keep on practicing until you reach mastery, at which point you can execute the new skill without even bothering to think about it.

• Can You Master Your Selling Skills?
• How to Master a Key Selling Skill