The Value of Training

Most people have never been shot at with an assault rifle. Nor have most folks been on the receiving end of a mortar attack. And only relatively few have been ordered to jump out of a perfectly good airplane into the middle of a gunfight, or to charge a busy machine gun nest. These rather stressful situations are simply not part of normal human experience. And I’d wager that only a very tiny subset of humanity would face any of these situations for the first time with peace or equanimity. That’s not a criticism; in fact, it speaks to sanity.

But unfortunately, these are situations that some soldiers must face, and they must do so with courage and without being too rattled, or they will fail. To respond well in the moment of stress, to succeed in their mission, they must be trained. Their response must be automatic. And so we train them. And we train them not to freeze under fire by shooting at them. That’s how they learn; that’s how they develop a level of learning we call unconsciously competent.

If you take out the gunfire and fear of death, this same logic can also be applied to sales. Making cold calls and talking about money are stressful situations in their own right.

Most of us are at not our best in highly stressful situations. We respond badly. Unless trained to do otherwise, we do our finest impersonation of a deer in the headlights.

It is possible to respond differently, more usefully. Through repetition and the formation of new habits, it is possible to change your instinctive response.

That is the value of training.

If you, or your team, needs to change their instinctive responses, I’d love to discuss bringing the sales mastery program to your organization.