I played college basketball with aspirations of playing in the NBA.  I worked hard and progressed to a high college level.  But there came a point when all my long hours of practice were no longer producing the gains I needed to attract the attention of the NBA scouts.

Then my coach taught me a lesson that elevated my skills to an NBA level and taught me how to train sales reps to close most of the leads they run.

I learned the importance of practicing with the same moves and the same intensity as you would with a game on the line, to practice like you play.

After practice one day, my coach called me into his office.  He popped a video cassette into the VCR and we watched the tape he had made an hour before without my knowing.   I shrugged,  “That’s me practicing my jump shot.  So?”

“Now watch this,” he said and popped in another cassette.  It was the game film from the night before.  We watched as I made jump shot after jump shot that bore no resemblance to the jump shots on the first tape.   He said nothing.  He didn’t need to.   

On the practice jump shots, my feet hardly left the ground.  In the game, I jumped a full two and a half feet.  I had been practicing, endlessly practicing a lazy shot that I would never take in a game with adrenaline pumping.  

Next day, I took to practicing the moves I saw on the game tape with game-like intensity, shooting from two feet in the air.  My shot percentage started moving upward.

My coach found many ways to introduce game intensity into practice.  We usually scrimmaged with all the starters on the same squad.  We could usually best the second squad in a walk—until the coach began fielding them with seven men to our five.  After practicing in what felt like a mosh pit, in a game, going against a mere five opponents, we felt virtually unopposed.    

In the home improvement business, most salesmen learn their presentation in the first few weeks.  In an occasional sales meeting when called upon to recite their pitch, they can do it without breaking a sweat.  Unfortunately, in an actual sales situation, they can lapse into a passionless recitation or be knocked off their well-worn rails by one unexpected question or objection.  

Many veteran sales reps, confident in their mastery of the presentation, have little patience with frequent sales meetings and regard role-play drill as a waste of time.   If they are ‘practicing their jump shot with there feet on the floor’, it probably is a waste of time.   But an hour spent in role-play with close supervision, under game-like pressure can pay greater long-term dividends, put more money in your pocket, than a successful sales pitch in the home that doesn’t advance your selling skills.   The wise salesman welcomes the chance to strengthen those selling muscles playing with the pressure of five against seven.

If it’s Repeatable, It’s Perfectible.

The first task of the sales manager is to set up a disciplined, step-by-step sales process like the ten-step system I teach, a process that’s repeatable, then train every sales rep in that system.  If every rep goes through the same steps, the same way every time, the process can be analyzed and refined to near perfection.    

The next step is to have every rep take ‘the hot seat’, to role-play his presentation before the entire sales force.  No improvising.  No winging it.  He must stick to the system knowing that every other rep in the room knows what he should be saying and will point out his mistakes.

Creating Game-like Intensity.

The sales manager should schedule regular and frequent sales meetings, two or three a week, and his goal should be to make ‘the hot seat’ feel like the surface of the sun.   The bigger the audience, the more informed the audience, the more spirited the competition, the more intense and productive the practice will be.

Video.  The Ultimate Training Tool.

For weeks, my college coach had been telling me that I was not practicing with intensity.  I was convinced his charge was unfair—until I saw the videos which revealed in an instant my short comings.  There’s simply no arguing with the tape.  

The video camera is the most eloquent and persuasive trainer.  For the sales manager, it can mean an enthusiastic and thriving sales force.  For the sales rep it can mean a double-digit increase in close rate.    If a hot seat presentation in front of a sales force that knows the pitch flawlessly introduces pressure into role-play drill, a rolling video camera increases that pressure ten-fold—like playing basketball against seven men.   

The pause and reverse buttons on the VCR have remarkable power.  They allow the instructor and the sales force to review and assess every element of the presentation, elements that would be impossible to notice and critique during a live presentation.   Once the video performance has been mined for lessons in the sales meeting room, the individual sales rep can take his tape or DVD home to identify and eliminate even the smallest negative habits.

Learning to Welcome the Pressure.

Cindy Cipriani, sales manager of Cipriani Builders of Woodbury, NJ., enrolled in my SuperStar Selling boot camp.  As the first day of class approached, she considered the stories she’d heard,  how I video tape each rep and critique their presentation before the whole group.  Cindy wasn’t sure she was ready for that, but she swallowed her fears.  

At the end of boot camp, Cindy was a believer. (Hear it in her words at http://rodneywebb.biz/?page_id=34).    She said that she had learned more from the video camera and the critique that followed than she had learned in four years of successful selling in the field.   She learned that training time could be your most productive time when you practice the way you play.