{"id":380,"date":"2011-06-09T10:26:08","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T10:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matriximpact.com\/fsf\/?p=380"},"modified":"2015-06-16T08:42:11","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T12:42:11","slug":"choking-happens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/2011\/06\/09\/choking-happens-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Choking HAPPENS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do athletic teams practice?\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Why do even the most advanced athletes practice the basics over and over?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Why do they review game flims\/videos before, during and after an athletic contest?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The answer to the above questions is simple. They do so because they want responses to situations to be essentially automatic. If you can remove the \u2018what should I do?\u2019 thought and instead allow the best and brightest to simply react using their God given abilities you have the chance to see real success in athletics. It\u2019s not complicated, you don\u2019t practice and the probability you will \u2018choke\u2019 in an unfamiliar situation is VERY HIGH.<\/p>\n

It is the same in sales. You have to practice your craft to become the best and also so you can recognize situations and know immediately what the solution to them is. If you can eliminate the \u2018I wasn\u2019t expecting that\u2019 commentary, which is another way of saying \u2018I choked,\u2019 I promise you will see sales increase.<\/p>\n

Now I know some sales people will say \u2018I get enough practice in front of my customers\u2019. But think about it for a moment, is that where you really want to practice? What happens if what you try doesn\u2019t work? Whoops, you just lost the sale; and that is the minimum that could go wrong.<\/p>\n

The repetition of successful performance results in the \u201cVideo Game Effect.\u201d<\/strong> We all know the basic concept of video games. Each level of the game has a \u2018boss\u2019 you have to defeat. After learning the needed skills and defeating him you move on to the next level, and so on and so on. Through practice and repetition you improve and have more success in the game. The better you get the more you enjoy the game. The world of sales is no different except that the better we get not only do we enjoy our work more but we make MORE MONEY!<\/p>\n

There is science to this as well. When confronted with a scenario you have prepared for, the body will produce a neuro-transmitter called Serotonin. Its main job is to induce a calming effect allowing higher level critical thinking to happen at a much quicker pace. The result is better decisions and actions that dictate performance. Once you start to succeed at the task, the body produces Endorphins which creates the euphoric feeling coming after you have performed at a high level or won a contest. Thus, you become conditioned to want the same feeling over and over which propagates continued performance improvement. You might call it \u201cAddiction to Success.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Sales managers I strongly urge you to start a regimen of sales simulations with your team. You should have each member of the team submit a situation where they either lost the sale or didn\u2019t move the process forward on a monthly basis. Also, build up your \u201cCatalog\u201d through your experience in the field riding with your team. Turn those actual events into simulations and before you know you will have a docket of potential selling scenarios that you can use to help develop your team and reduce the \u201cChoking Happens Syndrome.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last thing; always do a post mortem, an evaluation on both live events and the simulations. Make sure your team knows what they did right, what they could do better and what they better not do EVER again. Eliminate the \u2018what if\u2019 from you and your team\u2019s vocabulary and watch the sales numbers soar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do athletic teams practice? Why do even the most advanced athletes practice the basics over and over? Why do they review game flims\/videos before, during and after an athletic contest? The answer to the above questions is simple. They do so because they want responses to situations to be essentially automatic. If you can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17,25,56,37,18,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-players","category-best-practice","category-continual-development","category-critique-session","category-sales-superstars","category-simulations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}