Sales is a Marathon

Chris Bijou

Sales is a Marathon

CEO, iDealResponse

My 18 year old son Boston has always been a natural athlete. When other kids walked around our kitchen island, he would do a quick parkour, James Bond (new Bond) hop, just taping his hands on the granite as he flipped over to the other side. This of course made my wife crazy when she saw it happen.  He was a strong swimmer in high school and after this past season decided running was fun too. He wasn’t consistent. Just ran with friends once in a while. Oh, and did I tell you he naturally carries only about 3% body fat. That’s him in the picture.

About a month ago he decided to run a marathon. He ran a little here and there. He had no idea what it would be like to run for 26.2 miles. Ask anyone, the .2 counts, so I included it. Well amazingly enough, he ran passed over 1100 of the other 1500 runners. Finished 8th in his division and kept under an 8 ½ minute pace for all 26.2 miles without stopping. Time 3 Hours, 43 minutes. Honestly, that's amazing. He was excited and energized because he finished so strong verses so many older more experienced runners.

But…then the next day arrived like steel rods embedded in his muscles. Nothing was moving. He couldn’t run 10 feet. The next few days were a slow working recovery process of getting back to normal.

I see this in sales reps and managers all the time. They haven’t trained, they aren’t prepared but they think shear willpower and some skill learned over time will get them over the finish line. And sometimes it can…once. But not without pain. Lots and lots of pain. They lose family, lose sleep, lose time, lose enthusiasm to do it again and again. They aren’t true professional athletes. The professionals who had trained were more than twice as fast as a majority of the field. Think about that. They were done when the rest were struggling with all their might to get to the halfway point.

That’s why consistent effort requires consistent preparation. That’s why you have reps and managers doing 2 to 5 times the effective work when others struggle. Amazingly, that’s also why the consistently trained, consistently prepared professionals make it look so easy.

New goal: Consistent training so he can qualify for the Boston Marathon. We love you Boston!

What consistent preparation are you scheduling into your day? Week? Month?