President's Club Sound Byte - How to Use an A/B Journal

This past week, what was your best lesson learned on a sales call? Was it a success, or was it a failure? Sometimes our best lessons learned are when we fail. Have you ever thought about that? The question is what did we learn and what will we do different the next time? What if there was an exercise where you could track your greatest lessons learned? This would include questions from the prospect that you didn’t handle well, and a way to keep your confidence level high (even when your performance was not your best). There is and it’s called an Attitude/ Behavior Journal. It is one of the golden nuggets of the Sandler Training experience.

The following might be reasons why you would consider establishing a new habit- A/B journal.

1. The journal protects my “I” side, so I have permission to go out and fail today and not take the failure personally (remember the Identity/ Role theory).
2. It helps me to perform at a higher level of risk. Since my Identity is a “10”, out of 10, my role performance becomes stronger. What new challenges today do I need to confront?
3. The journal keeps my role performance consistent. I am tracking the right behaviors daily/ weekly and know what behaviors lead to success.
4. I can record my lessons, learn from my failures so not to repeat again, and learn from my successes so I can repeat those again.
5. It’s a score card (like any game) that helps me measure growth. It gives me the reasons why my Identity is always a 10, even when I don’t feel like it. Also, I can measure my role- the behavior (cold calls, qualifying, closing, presenting, using a Sandler technique) and make adjustments/ improvements.
6. It increases my responsibility to make adjustments. No excuses! For example, if I performed poorly in establishing an upfront contract, I can go back to the workbooks and audio and re-learn/ re-listen and improve. Sandler Rule: There are no bad prospects, just bad salespeople!
7. I come back to President’s Club ready to reengage; I practice, role play with my colleagues and get stronger with reinforcement.

All of this is a wonderful by product from a tool named the Attitude/ Behavior Journal. Take my 33 day challenge and try it for yourself (download the A/B Journal pdf document). I guarantee you’ll be a stronger salesperson and have better revenue from taking the challenge. Prove me wrong!

Good selling,

Jim Dunn

Sandler Trainer