Words of Wisdom

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

“Adults learn by doing and not by hearing how the trainer did it.”

The speaker was Bob Pike. That one line had a tremendous impact on me.

I was at a training conference in New York City in the mid ’80s. Sarah and I had paid a lot of money to attend. We felt we needed to walk the walk. We kept telling our prospective clients they ought to invest in training. So we invested in training for ourselves.

Most of us get promoted to sales management and find ourselves at the head of the conference table running the sales meeting.

Too many of us try to train by telling our sales team how we sold.

Bad idea.

You don’t want to clone yourself.

You want your salespeople to become their better selves.

Let them participate in their own learning.

Dare I say, make them participate in their own learning.

They don’t have to like it. You’re doing this for their improvement, not their enjoyment.

The better you get the better you’d better get.

Make that your mantra.