Train Diligently and Practice Constantly.

“If you train diligently in this skill, you will get to the heart of strategy itself, and in this way become able to win at will. You must practice constantly.” Miyamoto Mushashi

Miyamoto Musashi was an expert Japanese swordsman and rōnin (masterless samurai). He imparts much wisdom about strategy in his “Writings of the Five Spheres” (a.k.a., The Five Rings).

Source: www.biography.com/people/miyamoto-musashi-38201

As I read this quote, I began to think about how I’ve applied this concept over the last 25 years of my career. I’ve spent most of that time (~18 years) practicing the skills of solutions consulting. A critical and frequent opportunity to practice is product demonstrations. In all of those years, I have never had a Miyamoto single-strike moment. This is a level of achievement noted by a win (in my case winning a sale) that is secured with a singular movement (in my case a single demo, or presentation, etc.). That is perhaps an unrealistic goal for complex solution selling.

Selling technology solutions is a long process. Some deals take longer to win than others. The length of a sales cycle doesn’t always hinge on the size of the deal, either. I’ve experienced sales cycles that took a mere 3 months to close hundreds of user licenses, and others that spanned over two years for only tens of user licenses. When a deal takes longer than expected to close, I focus on being responsive to their questions and being patient. While I may struggle internally with the pressures of quotas (both mine and others working with me), it’s important to project calm and a heart of service to my clients.

The principal objective is to keep practicing. Every demo or presentation opportunity is a practice run for the next one. Each time that I engage, I learn a little more about what works, and what doesn’t. Invariably, I will get asked new and interesting questions that I have never thought about before. This improves my ability to answer questions the next time I hear a similar question.

Sometimes it’s the technology that makes the difference for a quick sale. Perhaps the software was cool and modern looking, or easy to integrate with, or just had the right mix of features. More often than not, it has been my ability to listen for the subtle clues a customer might give in the way they ask a question. However, just as important as the listening skill, has been my fluency with the product. Knowing the “fastest path” to execute a feature demonstrates how easy it is to use the software, as well as quickly validating that we have a solution.

If you are working in sales, pre-sales support, sales engineering, or some other version of solutions consulting, take these important steps now to improve your ability to win:

1. Practice using and demonstrating your product constantly. Find every moment you can to play with your demonstration environment. Find the easiest path to showing high-value features.
2. Research tough questions, and then go make it work in your demonstration environment. Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, is famous for saying, “a week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.” You will learn more about your product from actually using it than you will from any classroom, or recorded webinar.
3. Practice your perfect pitch and internalize it. Vince Lombardi, the famous football coach, said on many occasions that, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” Write out your script, and read it out loud, word for word. Relentlessly refine your script. Edit for word choice and impact. Be sure that you are conveying the value of every feature, not just that you can do this or that.