Page 5 - Increase Your 2020 Sales

1. Practice Schedule

It is important to note that, in football:

• Understanding your opponent is critical
• Reviewing practice and game performance is needed
• A team must have a solid strategy for all aspects of the game
• Great athletes must be able to make game time adjustments and decisions
• An occasional good bounce can be additive!

At the end of the day, however, improving skills, practicing the game plan, and getting feedback
from the Practice Sessions are crucial for success!

When I was coaching, we had 30 practice sessions before each game. Each practice session was
at least 2 hours long. For every hour on the field, there was at least 1 hour in the classroom and at
least 1 hour of film study or playbook study. This was all for about 8-10 minutes of actual action
on the field.

How much time are you spending practicing to improve your sales management skills? How
much time are you spending coaching your people to improve their craft? Just because you hire
or have experienced salespeople who have been selling for 20+ years does not mean that you
don’t need to run practice sessions with your team.

The greatest coaches in the game will tell you how wrong you are to believe that experience, or
years in the profession, means that less time is needed in practice. “Practice makes perfect”, but
more importantly, “Perfect Practice makes Perfect Performance”.

Practice as a Sales Productivity Tool.

According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, 10,000 hours of practice is the tipping point of
greatness. The book looks at a number of “outliers”, people who are extraordinarily proficient in
certain subjects or skills. There are contributing factors to practice that are connected to their
competency and eventual expertise in a skill.

At Anthony Cole Training Group, we work with sales managers to help them focus and develop
their ideal week. Within that ideal week is time allocated for practice. Practice is a requirement
for improving skill and performance across the board.

What should practice look like?

Your practice should include the following sales practice components: Drill for Skill (on-the-
spot short demonstrations of a skill), Role-Playing and Strategy Development. To accomplish
these exercises, you should have pre and post call checklists as well as phone call scorecards and
data from your sales huddles.

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