I am writing this column as I sit in the Atlanta airport, waiting to return home after attending a national conference that included various educational opportunities. While waiting for the flight, I began reviewing the notes I had taken during the educational seminars I attended.

As I looked through what I had written, my first thought was, how can I take this information home and use it to make improvements in our company?

I realized I had to take the new tools I’d acquired and put them into action. But I also realized it wasn’t going to be enough to just go and do it; I had to practice these skills myself to ensure the best results.

Practice Makes Perfect

It’s said that to create a new habit or get rid of an old one, it takes days of repetition. Therefore, if we have a positive behavior we want to make a habit of, we must have the discipline to do things over and over again until it becomes ingrained in us as a habit. Just as golfers take their practice shots over and over to give them “muscle memory,” we as salespeople need to practice our skills so when we’re working with prospects, we will have the “presentation memory” automatically in place.

What’s really great about this is that developing good sales habits has nothing to do with the size of the company. It’s not about being brilliant. It doesn’t require an expensive investment of hard-earned dollars. All it really requires is strict discipline to do it over and over again until it becomes a habit.

At the conference, there were future educational opportunities we could sign up for that would require an additional investment. I didn’t doubt their value, but when asked by a colleague if I was going to invest in this additional training, my response was, no, I am going home to improve my business by implementing what I have learned at this conference. After all, what good is going to conferences to learn if we don’t take the time to practice what we’ve learned so we can incorporate the new habits into our businesses?

I suspect if you think about it, you know there are processes or daily activities that you or your company engage in that could use some improvement. Unfortunately, they may not have received the focus or energy investment needed to elevate them to the point where they became part of the way you do business.

So what do you most need to improve at your firm? It may be basic selling skills, or not having a follow-up system to track potential customers. It may be not maximizing your computer design skills, or the potential of computer programs you’ve invested in. It may be something else entirely.

You don’t want (or need) to make an endless list. After all, trying to make too-broad improvements can lead you to give up in exhaustion.

Rather, I suggest you fight one battle at a time. Focus on one key area where you’d like to make improvements, and invest your time and energies in making positive changes. Then, practice, practice, practice.