The ABC's of Selling - L

L - Learning

We learned years ago that adults learn differently than children. And salespeople learn differently than adults - other adults, that is. Many salespeople have high energy and short attention spans. Many, like me, have ADHD. Many great salespeople I know were not very good students because our education systems are designed for left-brain learning in a structured, linear fashion. And our schools don't teach interpersonal skills vital for building business relationships.

At TCS, we have found that if we use actual live accounts in class to teach from, then the workshop is very relevant to our students' world, and they engage more intensely. And since we teach competitive and political strategy, the time spent isn't instead of their job, it is their job. We have turned millions of dollars in evaluation strategies around in class.

We have also found that any instruction needs to be no more than 15 to 20 minutes before you get back into an exercise. That is why we have had success with virtual, instructor-led workshops rather tha two hour self-directed elearning. The salespeople we know won't sit still that long.