In the second in a series of three articles, Ray daSilva from IAM Mobility Exchange offers more advice on selling for moving professionals.
To get the full context, please read the original article by Steve Jordan (‘In Praise of Selling’, The Mover Magazine, June 2024 issue) where he voiced out his observation that sales training, as crucial as it is to a company’s success, sadly gets very little attention from business owners in our industry.
Having always believed in the importance of harnessing sales skills in people and recognizing the urgent need for the moving industry to take sales training seriously, I volunteered to write a three-part series on the topic.
This is part two.
Learning is the Easy Part
Exposure to knowledge of a particular skill does not equate to competence. It does not even guarantee that one would know how to apply that skill just from having watched it done by someone. Consider the example of a magic trick. Watching a skilled magician perform a magic trick will easily impress anyone and may even make some wonder if magic is real. Except we do know that the magician can break down how the trick is done and dispel the magic aspect. It is nothing but a learned trick, after-all. Assuming he does reveal the secret to the trick and teaches how it is done step by step, does it mean everyone from the audience can perform the trick like the magician can?
The general answer is ‘No’. Being exposed to the how of things is the easy part. Most professional magicians practice and rehearse for hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours before they’re able to perform magic acts smoothly and fluidly enough to make them believable.
Similarly, professional selling is a skill (or skill set) that requires more than just watching or learning about the concept. It requires training, practice, and experience. Have you ever been approached by a nervous novice salesperson? You feel sorry for them because their minds are so focused on what they are going to say next that it is impossible for them to hear, see or understand you.
The Stages of Competence
To illustrate the Stages of Competence, let us use the example of tying one’s shoes. Little shoes on a baby’s feet are the cutest thing, aren’t they? We know that the baby has no idea how to tie a shoe. In fact, they don’t know what shoes are. Someone laced up those shoes neatly for them. This is the stage of Unconscious Competence ...
Photo: Ray daSilva, IAM Mobility Exchange.