5Preparation
‘My team, the Green Bay Packers, never lost a football game; they just ran out of time’.
—Vince Lombardi
Why are some people more successful than others? Why does Novak Djokovic either win every tennis tournament he enters or gets into the final on a bad day? Surely he's just naturally gifted, you might think. The closest thing this guy is to a robot, and, arguably, the best tennis player ever to have graced the courts. But he still has a coach, practices every single day and sticks to a routine religiously before every game he plays. He watches more games of his opponents than any other player in the circuit. He knows his opponents' strengths and weaknesses, as well as his own.
How many times have you phoned your direct competitors posing as a customer to see how they deal with you? This is a great way of learning their line of questioning that you could bring into your sales pattern. How many proposals have you obtained from your competitors? Again, this will enable you to take the best bits from each and amalgamate them into the best proposal. This will surely put you in the strongest position to be successful in a proposal‐only situation, where the prospect wishes to see something before they commit to a meeting.
How would you describe Novak Djokovic in one word? Champion, winner, rich, successful, ambitious – there are many more adjectives to illustrate the genius, however, the word ‘professional’ encapsulates them all.
As a professional salesperson, preparation ...
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