Preparation: What it REALLY Looked Like For Me
Preparation is an area that's often discussed in personal development books in concept, but I feel like many people that desire to be more successful really miss the boat on what it really entails. Here are a few tips based on my life experiences that have helped shape my mindset in regards to preparation.
I first learned to prepare in Martial Arts when I trained under Hanshi Larry Zahand at Zahand's Martial Arts in Cuyahoga Falls, OH in my 20's and 30's. I quickly realized when I started there in my early twenties that I was not very strong, not very flexible, and not very talented at anything they taught. I was picked on a lot as a child, so I did have a burning desire to become a black belt. That quickly made me realize that to excel there, not only would I have to keep showing up even when it hurt (mentally, physically, and emotionally), but I would need to practice more than most people, on my own time to learn the techniques needed to get promoted and learn to fight. I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours of my own time repeating akward techniques and combinations until they became natural. Each technique that became natural became a building block for another more advanced technique.
In my early 30's I changed careers from Engineering when I began my career as an independent contractor in financial services. In this world there were no quotas, and all promotions were based on our production numbers, period. I knew again in this field that I lacked the natural abilites to do well. I lacked people skills. I knew that I was a terrible sales person. I knew that I was extremely unskilled at overcoming even basic objections to the benefits of my products and service. I didn't understand the products. What I DID have though was like in Martial Arts, a deep seated passion for the purpose of what I was trying to acccomplish. These factors made me realize that once again, I would have to work extremely hard just to achieve a basic level of competence in my new field. So I went to work immediately.
Let me expand on some things I have done to get good, because people that see me now running my own office and my own trainings may think that my current skills were a natural "gift". Far from it.
A. I used to call my wife on the 25 minute drive home from the office trainings and practice setting appointments on her, as if she were a prospect. I was blessed to have a wife that had attended enough of our office trainings to be willing and able to play along. I wouldn't break character when doing these calls. For example, my wife would pick up "Hello?" (this was pre-caller ID). Me: "Hi is this Amy? This is Bob Powers, I'm the financial guy that met with your (brother)... does my name ring a bell?" Then she would whine "Oh come on honey, do we HAVE to do this again NOW?" Me: "I'm sorry Amy, I'm not sure what you mean, but the reason for my call is..." and I would continue with the "pitch". She usually played along (bless her heart!) Over and over and over again, until I became natural.
B. I NEVER would listen to the radio or music, but only self improvement audios instead when I was in my car, from Sunday at 5PM to Saturday at 5PM. In other words, the only time I listened to music was from Saturday night through Sunday day. The other 6 days it was overcoming objections audios and various other skillsets and mindset trainings recommended or approved by my trainers.
C. After I joined, I asked if the office had any audio recordings of the trainings for agents. This was before things like SoundCloud, and before our home office added a plethora of trainings on the agent website. There were no such trainings recorded, so I created such a library that now has hundreds of hours of trainings from our National Sales Director recorded for free download by anyone in our office. I spent every Thursday recording these trainings, and I spent every Thursday evening after our agent's weekly training was done from about 10PM until 11PM, or some nights as late as 1PM editing and uploading the audios for everyone to use. I wanted to get better more than I wanted to go home early.
D. ANY time I set foot into my mentor's office, I ALWAYS brought a pen & paper in, and sometimes an audio recorder. I knew that his time and experience were valuable. I also knew that if I could overcome objections as naturally as him, I would have good success a good portion of the time I interacted with people. Therefore, it became of utmost importance to me to improve my skills in this critical area. I realized that my memory was frail. If he gave me a GREAT way to overcome an objection, or a fantastic strategy on an appointment, I always felt wonderful afterwards, but without a recording of the words or strategy, there's no way I could duplicate it. My mentor, Ketan Parekh, taught me that in India, they would not lay papers on the floor. Paper with writing on it represents knowledge, and knowledge is to be respected. I went so far as in my first year of business (this was before tablets and even before Palm Pilots) to create a large 3 ring binder with all the important trainings separated by topic into the binder so I could easily refer back to them. Noone every told me to do this. This was something I knew I needed to do to get good.
E. Before I started running my own trainings, if I was ever given a part to do at training, I took it very seriously. This generally happened in one of two ways: either I was given time to prepare for the training spot, or the trainer asked for someone to perform on the spot, with no preparation. Most people are hesitant to volunteer, because we usually train on things the group is weak on, which means by nature embarrassment is involved. I often volunteered, because I learned that small embarrassment became fuel that helped me learn that skill faster. The person that tried and failed to perform usually learned the most. I treated the opportunity to teach with preparation very seriously. I treated it like the attendees were going to duplicate my skills. I treated it as if there would be no one there to correct me. This fueled me to do the research, and to audio record myself if necessary to give the best version I could. I don’t see most people putting in this level of effort in their preparation, and their skills don’t progress very quickly as a result.
F. I frequently forfeited leisure time on evenings and weekends whenever I needed to learn new products or processes. I JUST did this recently. There have been additions and changes to one of our product lines that I was not 100% familiar with to before the additions. I knew I had a relevant prospect for this product line, and I also knew that there were over one hundred different specific product choices available that needed to be narrowed down to 3 to 5. It was bordering on being an overwhelming task. First, I revisited my own notes. I called the home office to ask questions. I then arranged a time with a home office specialist on the subject and spent over an hour being briefed on the best strategies an narrowed the product list down to about a dozen relevant choices. This was important because it saved me from reviewing dozens of poor choices that an expert could immediately throw out for me. Next, I spent about another dozen hours putting together a proposal, and I thoroughly researched the dozen product choices, narrowing it down to three that I was then very comfortable and knowledgeable with. In essence I gave up an entire weekend to prepare. Doing this let me go from barely competent on the subject, to extremely competent and confident in the span of less than a week.
Remind yourself, what will getting great through preparation GET you? If we're talking about getting a much-wanted promotion at a job, or as in my case obtaining a new client that perfectly fits the "sweet spot" on my bat, or doing something that could generate residual income, isn't that worth a major sacrifice? The market is not "personal" most of the time. What I mean by that is that there is a certain level of skill that must be crossed, in the areas of people skills, overcoming objections, and product knowledge, to have a passable level of success. Therefore, the market doesn't "care" how skilled you are. It simply works like a high jumper jumping over a bar. You either go over it, or you knock the bar off. If you don't clear it, and don't jump higher next time (improve your skills), you will never cross the bar. If you work like heck to get better and therefore "jump higher" you WILL improve immediately. The choice is ours to make, and we make that choice every morning and every evening with how we spend our spare time.
Just don't forget that it's not JUST about preparation, and it's not just about taking action by talking to prospects... BOTH are critical. Make the time and put in the effort to become great. It's so rare that anyone else will do take the effort to do so.