The Ultimate Sales Machine summary

Introduction

The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes Focus on 12 key strategies to turbocharge your business. What separates an ordinary business from one that consistently wins customers, develops talent, and keeps improving? Imagine sharpening your methods instead of simply working longer and harder every day. Chet Holmes shows how disciplined practice across 12 strategies can transform the way a business operates.

sharpen your team through repeated training

Sharpen Your Team Through Repeated Training. Ensuring the highest standards for your staff through repeated training can help your business run effectively. The lumberjack may not seem to bear any relation to sales, but consider this example. A lumberjack's job is to cut wood every day.

If he wants to cut more wood, he could add a few extra hours to each workday. This would boost his productivity, or he could spend a few extra hours sharpening his saw one day. This would enable him to cut more wood every day afterward. He would not have to work the extra hours.

You too can follow the lumberjack's example. Increase your organization's productivity by sharpening your team through training. Training enables you to set and raise the standards of staff performance. It helps you be proactive.

Most obviously, training shows your employees where you want their focus. It shows them which areas of performance they should improve. Furthermore, training helps you proactively prepare for difficult situations before they arise. Would you want to perform first aid for the first time if someone's life depended on it?

Of course not. You'd want to be confident in your first aid skills before you put them to use. The only way to do that is through training. In fact, the same is true for your business.

For example, you may want your team to effectively handle an important but disruptive client. Then you must train them in managing this particular situation first. For training to be effective, it has to be repetitive. Important concepts must be constantly reinforced and reiterated.

For example, your customer acquisition training might be only a one-time, hour-long course. Then you might learn the basics. But after a couple of weeks, you'll probably have forgotten most of what you learned. However, follow-up lessons that continue for a few weeks give you the capability to use the skills.

They also enable you to reuse those skills. This is true even months later. Like the lumberjack, cutting wood becomes much easier when you keep your tools sharp. With regular training efforts, your staff will learn how to deal with tricky situations more effectively and proactively.