How Can I Apply Deep Work Into My Sales Role?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Who we got for the first one?

00:00:05.900 | - The first one is Thomas.

00:00:07.860 | And he basically has a question about deep life

00:00:10.740 | and how that applies to sales.

00:00:12.900 | - Nice, all right.

00:00:13.800 | - Hey Cal, my name is Thomas.

00:00:18.000 | First, I wanted to say thank you for all that you do.

00:00:20.140 | Your work has really helped me live a better life.

00:00:22.940 | Anyways, I work for a software development company

00:00:25.300 | and I'm starting my own recruiting agency as well.

00:00:28.060 | For both companies, my main focus is currently sales

00:00:30.540 | and business development.

00:00:31.740 | I'm usually focused on outbound sales work

00:00:33.980 | like calling, emailing, and curating

00:00:36.680 | and sharing relevant articles with prospects.

00:00:39.500 | My question is how can I incorporate deep work into my role

00:00:42.980 | and how does it apply to sales?

00:00:45.100 | Also, how do you see outbound or inbound sales

00:00:48.360 | for that matter, evolving as buyers continue

00:00:50.900 | to be inundated with emails and calls?

00:00:53.980 | Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

00:00:57.500 | - Well, Thomas, I mean, I think when it comes

00:00:58.980 | to any work activity, probably the relevant term,

00:01:03.980 | and I think you're mixing two similar terms together,

00:01:07.860 | but I'm gonna separate them.

00:01:09.620 | Probably the relevant term here is deliberate practice,

00:01:12.720 | maybe even more so than deep work.

00:01:16.460 | So deep work, and you can go back

00:01:17.700 | and watch my core idea video about this,

00:01:19.220 | is an activity, it's an activity where you give something

00:01:21.260 | focus without distraction.

00:01:23.180 | And it's a mental state in which you produce

00:01:25.060 | at a high level for your cognitive capacities.

00:01:27.980 | I mean, clearly on a sales call, you know this,

00:01:29.860 | you wanna be doing just that and you don't wanna be

00:01:32.340 | checking your email at the same time.

00:01:33.660 | But I think what's really relevant here

00:01:35.020 | is the related topic of deliberate practice.

00:01:37.900 | It's something I write about in my book,

00:01:40.580 | "So Good They Can't Ignore You."

00:01:43.160 | How do you take this concept and apply it

00:01:45.580 | to the really varied and weird and kind of squishy

00:01:47.980 | to measure type activities that make up

00:01:50.060 | typical office style work?

00:01:51.580 | And my argument is we should be trying to do these efforts.

00:01:53.780 | We should be trying to deliberately improve in the office.

00:01:56.920 | We should be applying deliberate practice,

00:01:59.420 | which means we have to design activities specifically

00:02:02.400 | to stretch our ability beyond where we're comfortable,

00:02:05.260 | using feedback to help keep us aimed in the right place.

00:02:09.080 | And in that stretch, we get better and better.

00:02:10.820 | That's probably the key thing for sales.

00:02:13.100 | It's continually saying, what are the key skills here?

00:02:17.540 | What makes a better sales call versus a worse one?

00:02:20.420 | And designing activities to stretch your abilities,

00:02:23.500 | getting feedback to make sure that you're aimed

00:02:25.380 | in the right direction.

00:02:26.260 | And this might be something you do with mentors.

00:02:27.880 | This might be something you do with studies or courses,

00:02:30.680 | but there's a lot of improvement to be done here

00:02:32.700 | and what really works and what doesn't

00:02:34.220 | in the type of sales that you do.

00:02:35.980 | And you should have the mindset of,

00:02:36.980 | I wanna get better at this in a month than I am right now.

00:02:39.460 | And I'm not gonna be better in a month

00:02:40.700 | just by doing a lot more calls.

00:02:42.020 | I'm gonna get better by doing a lot more

00:02:43.940 | deliberately structured activities that stretch me

00:02:46.100 | in the places where I am not yet good, or I could be better.

00:02:50.860 | So you gotta get in the information about what matters here

00:02:53.020 | to design activities to stretch you.

00:02:55.060 | That's how you get better and better.

00:02:56.660 | Once you have that mindset,

00:02:58.860 | the issue of the mediums changing,

00:03:00.820 | people aren't listening to emails as much,

00:03:02.560 | people are more inundated with distractions,

00:03:04.500 | or how do we sell better?

00:03:06.120 | You're gonna react to that naturally

00:03:07.620 | because you're already gonna be in this mindset

00:03:09.260 | of trying to figure out what works

00:03:10.620 | and stretching yourself towards what's better.

00:03:12.180 | Getting back metrics, seeing what works, what doesn't,

00:03:14.260 | moving towards the things that do.

00:03:15.500 | So you'll already be in that mindset.

00:03:16.900 | So you'll already be shifting away from the trouble areas

00:03:19.500 | and towards the new modalities that work better.

00:03:22.740 | So that's what I would suggest.

00:03:24.300 | This is a deliberate practice play.

00:03:26.540 | You wanna train at sales calls like an athlete training

00:03:29.540 | to pick up a new type of shot,

00:03:31.620 | like an athlete trying to get an accuracy higher.

00:03:34.400 | You wanna train like a chess player

00:03:35.700 | trying to master a new type of opening,

00:03:37.340 | deliberately structured work.

00:03:39.900 | And we do this not just for success, for the sake of success.

00:03:42.660 | We do this because it makes you better than you were,

00:03:46.500 | which gives you more career capital.

00:03:48.060 | And with that career capital,

00:03:48.940 | you get more flexibility and autonomy over your working life,

00:03:51.360 | which is ultimately the whole game here

00:03:53.820 | is get that capital, gain control of your working life,

00:03:55.860 | move it towards what resonates and away from what doesn't.

00:03:58.020 | All that's built on skill.

00:03:59.980 | The skill comes from practice.

00:04:01.360 | So that is the term, Thomas, I want you to have in mind

00:04:04.580 | is deliberate practice, not necessarily deep work.

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How Can I Apply Deep Work Into My Sales Role?

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