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OPINION: Train Like an Olympian to Succeed

A formal suit picture up close of Sobel University President Jered Sobel

Why do so many marvel at the Olympics? Are they awed by feats of strength? The records broken? The personal journeys these athletes undergo?

I have always admired these athletes for their persistence and dedication to greatness through real training.

Non-impactful training happens all the time. People go to the gym, but they do not use their time sufficiently to improve. Numerous people work really hard for short bursts but do not follow through. Other people hire trainers to pump them up with energy and enthusiasm, yet they fail to improve their technique and form.

This spring has been a time for our industry to recognize where we are, where we have been and where we want to go.

Manufacturers are working diligently to build their future inventory. RV suppliers are determining what level they want to invest in our industry. Your dealership’s employees are deciding whether they want to compete in our industry.

Just look at their effort and training.

We were in the hottest market ever. Then we were in a very tight and competitive market. Now, we are back to a normal market, where the employees who train the best win the most.

Through my travels this spring across the continent, I have been astounded at just how few people recognize the effort to train to be excellent in sales, let alone
an Olympic athlete.

I was once graced by an Olympic archer in my Comprehensive Sales Course and asked her, “What does it take to play at your level?” Her response: “On top of my full-time job, training is a full-time job.”

She proceeded to explain her routine. Every morning, she started with a half-dollar-sized target. She would stand three feet from the target, aim and hit it three consecutive times. Then, she would take a step back, aim and do it again. She would take another step back and do it again.

She would continue this process beyond the farthest distance in which she could compete, and then would perform the same exercise all the way back in. The whole routine took about four hours.

Consistent excellence comes from executing the fundamentals flawlessly.

After work, she would practice situation training. She had a daily exercise to simulate all the possible weather conditions for different competitions. This routine took another four hours.

Practicing through real situations enabled her to be ready, no matter what she faced. This is why role-playing is so vital in training in your dealership.

Let’s apply the lessons from an Olympic athlete to your store to see whether you are training for the level at which you want to compete in this market.

  1. Is training part of employees’ job? Training must be a firm, scheduled time every day. Training that is not scheduled will not happen. Most training occurs through deals. However, the sales team can become so emotionally wrapped up in the deal’s specifics that they lose the ability to listen and learn the lesson needed to close the next deal.
  2. Are training topics scheduled in advance? Too many sales meetings involve managers standing up and riffing for a few minutes about what they have done or telling the sales team what they should do. Schedule the topics to help stay focused on what training aspect is actually being cover.
  3. Are the topics focused on real execution of necessary skills? Managers must spend time in training meetings explaining dealership procedure changes and scheduling updates. However, this is not training. Training should be the sales equivalent of practicing hitting three bullseyes in a row from 3 feet away, and not moving on until the goal is accomplished. Flawless execution provides opportunities to succeed each time. Without practicing your training regularly, your skills will fade.
  4. Is everyone role-playing? Are salespeople already warmed up and actually ready to start the day with their first customer? Are your salespeople still tight from the night before? Before each Olympic event, athletes are constantly working to stay loose and ready. The athletes might be in hot tubs or jumping in place to keep their muscles ready to work. Your sales team must role-play every morning. This activity gets their minds and voices working and ready to make that first phone call and take that first lead.
  5. Is every individual role-playing the sales practices needed in today’s market? The quality of the techniques used impacts the results significantly. Training topics from two years ago do not work as well as the methods you should be training now. The course material I teach is constantly updated as the world is changing. In the first half of this year alone, I created three new lessons. These lessons did not need to exist in previous years, but they do apply today.

Actual daily training is a commitment to excellence and a hard habit to form. The challenge is always looking at the big picture when doing small exercises. You do not notice the difference each day when you go to the gym. Over a week, a month or a year, however, you will realize just how significant your effort has been.

Over time, small, incremental improvements lead to substantial leaps.

Let’s consider a real role-playing scenario. During a sales meeting, a salesperson learns to add a reflective listening response to an email lead. Learning the lesson and improving the email replies the salesperson sends might require a week of repetition and practice. As the salesperson improves, their response rate grows by small percentages. A 1% increase in response rate each day is not noticeable. Multiply that increase by the salesperson’s continued weekly skill development, then multiply that by the number of leads the salesperson gets over an entire year. Now you can see the pay raise everyone receives.

Last month, I was training at a dealership on Sobel University’s Interactive Presentation technique. The concept lesson came to explain the difference between an old feature benefit, a feature advantage benefit and actually having the customer engaged with a customized walkaround.

Everyone took a turn using the specific technique. The 12 salespeople took 50 minutes to complete their 12 feature presentations. As the coach, I adjusted each one’s execution, then had them present again.

This time, it took 30 minutes to do 12 different feature presentations. With another technique adjustment and time to decompress mentally and work on something else, we went back
to the exercise.

This time, 12 salespeople with proper execution of one feature each took nine minutes to complete.

This is real training. Role-playing, followed by adjusting done by a proper coach. Role-playing, then processing the results. Finally, role-playing again.

The growth that morning was obvious to see in the time it took and in the increased quality of the presentations given.

Olympics athletes do not beat world records by giant leaps. Instead, they beat world records
by committing to training every day.

The athletes’ training is scheduled, is focused on the necessary and uses all the most modern resources available.

Is your team training to just say they are training? Or are they training to beat world records?

 

Jered Sobel serves as president of Sobel University, a company providing training for management, salespeople and consumers across North America. He is best known for designing the industry-standard onboarding sales training manual and co-authoring the consumer guide to purchasing an RV. Among his previous work experiences are roles as a dealership salesperson, a general sales manager and hiring dealer staff.

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