How to Master ANY Selling Skill

One of the big challenges in mastering any sales skill is staying with it long enough so that skill becomes habitual. This challenge becomes much easier to manage once you understand exactly how your brain works when it comes to mastering a skill.

Greg Wingard, the author of the book Stick With It points out that the mind goes through two phases when it learns a new skill: the theory phase (where you understand the skill intellectually) and the practice phase (where you actually attempt to apply the skill.) The analogy here is the difference between reading a book about baseball (the theory phase) and actually getting out of the field and attempting to play.

Needless to say, theoretical knowledge is of limited usefulness, and reading a book about "how to hit a home run" isn't going to turn you into Babe Ruth. However, the theoretical phase lays the groundwork for the practice phase, because it provides the conceptual structure under which you will learn and practice the skill.

Another way to look at learning a skill is to separate it into six stages, with three stages per phase:

The Theory Phase:

• Stage 1: Unawareness. You are completely unaware that there is a skill to be learned. For example, you might be making cold calls without realizing that your voice sounds unenthusiastic.
• Stage 2: Awareness. You realize that something isn't working. For example, you might observe your cold calling isn't generating leads, and ask colleagues for feedback as to why that might be.
• Stage 3: Clarification. You understand what you need to do differently. For example, you realize that you need to work on your telephone voice so that you express more enthusiasm during a cold call.

• Stage 4: Awkwardness. You attempt the new behavior and find it difficult. For example, you rehease your cold calling lead-in in an attempt to sound more enthusiastic. However, you get feedback that it seems forced and unnatural. WARNING: Do not give up at this stage.
• Stage 5: Familiarity. The new behavior is easier but still not automatic. For example, you find that you can make yourself sound more enthusiastic, but you still find yourself falling into the old way, when you're not paying attention. WARNING: Do not give up at this stage.
• Stage 6: Mastery. You no longer think about the behavior but simply do it. For example, you now find that you automatically sound enthusiastic over the telephone and, in fact, you must make a conscious effort to sound unethusiastic. You have now mastered the skill.

If you practice the new skill until you reach stage 6, you'll find that it's like "riding a bike". You'll always be able to draw on that skill and will always have it in your tool kit. Then you can start working on some other skill that needs improvement.

The trick to doing this, according to Wingard, is to developing a habit of practicing new skills on a regular basis, but only for a short period of time each day. He points out that most people who are committed to improving their lives often attempt to make changes in multiple areas, which makes it difficult or impossible to focus on one skill long enough so that it becomes automatic.

Wingard draws the analogy of people who resolve that "Starting tomorrow, I'm going to run three miles a day, lift weights, drink eight glasses of water, stop smoking, stop drinking coffee, and eat 50 percent less fat." The likelihood that you'll be keep up that regimen for even a few days is practically nil.

Instead, you should commit a very small amount of time each day - hopefully less than ten minutes -- to focus on the change that you seek. More time than that, and it's likely that other priorities will intrude and you'll never master that skill.

Readers: Does this jibe with your experience? Or is there some other way to learn a sales skill that I don't know about?