Once upon a time there were two men who lived in the same forest and decided to have a contest chopping wood.  The first man was in good physical shape and very muscular.  The second man was in good shape but smaller in statute and wiry.  They would chop wood all day and at the end of the day compare to see who had chopped the most wood. 

The first man laughed to himself that there was no way this wiry little man would beat him and so they began the contest.  Every 45 minutes the second smaller man would take a break and seems to just wonder off somewhere.  The first man laughed again to himself and said "Yep there's no way this wiry little man is going to beat me."  This happens several times during the day. 

At the end of the day the two men compare their piles of chopped wood and unbelievably enough the wiry little man has chopped twice as much wood as the more physically fit man.  He says "I don't understand.  First I'm twice your size and twice your strength!  On top of that every 45 minutes you rolled off and took a break or a nap or something.  You must have cheated!"  The smaller man says "I don't cheat.  It was easy to beat you because every 45 minutes when you thought I was taking a break, I was out back sharpening my ax.”

One of my favorite quotations comes from Abraham Lincoln when he said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

As a sales professional, you, too, must take time to sharpen your axe. How do you do that, you ask. By constantly honing your skills through training and education is the answer.

Being successful at sales requires preparation, as illustrated in the Lincoln quote. You must learn sales and persuasion skills, along with product knowledge, before you can be successful. Your mission, as a salesperson, will be to help your customers buy. In order to do this you will need to learn how to create a relationship that leads to trust which will lead to the sale. You need to learn to ask questions that help your potential customer inform you about their needs and wants. You need to learn how to create the environment where they want to buy your product from you and from your company now and in the future.

And, as the wood-cutter story shows, simply completing training at the beginning of your sales career is not enough. In order to continue to be a successful, professional salesperson, you must continue to train and educate yourself. In fact, training is a never-ending proposition. Old skills become dull and new developments happen all the time whatever business you are in. Diminishing sales often produces a diminishing attitude and the downward spiral continues.

The best training satisfies both of these needs. It provides thorough instruction on all you need to be successful at helping customers buy initially along with further in-depth training that you can access whenever you need it. It helps you keep your axe sharp and your commission checks large.

Don’t be like the wood-cutter. Don’t let your axe get dull. Training is an investment in your future. Ignoring it will cost you in the long run. Remember, training doesn’t cost; it pays.