MLB and Recording Your Calls

I was reading an article by my favorite sports writer, Peter Kings, last week, and he had this small section about his recent visit to the Ranger’s dugout:

“Thanks, Jon Daniels, for showing us around the ballpark in Arlington. What amazed me is the video sophistication. Behind the Rangers’ dugout is a room with three video men and six stations where players can come in before, during and after games to see their at-bats, or to study the pitchers or hitters they’re about to face. Six. I always knew baseball teams did this stuff, but we were shown how hitters, in a matter of seconds, can find any at-bat they’ve had against any pitcher – from a variety of camera angles.”

What I immediately thought of was how this applied to inside sales and recording your prospecting and closing calls. Imagine how much better of a sales professional you would be if you could hear how you handle every type of sales situation you run into during the month.

How much, and how fast, would you improve if you could critique and correct how you handle the brush offs you get, the stalls you have to deal with when getting back with prospects, the objections you get when you ask for the order.

How valuable would it be for you to be able to hear yourself, real time, and to be able to improve your technique so that the next time you’re in a similar situation you can handle it more effectively and close the sale?

Recording, studying, critiquing and improving is how every Top Professional improves their craft, and it’s how you should be doing it as well.

Here’s a tip for those of you who make outbound calls and are afraid of disclosing that the call is being recorded because you’re afraid your prospects won’t want to talk to you:

“Hi this is ________ on a recorded line with (your company) calling. How’s your Tuesday going?”

You see, it’s easy to disclose your call is being recorded, and it’s so prevalent today that no one will object.

The bottom line is that if you want to get better then you have to record yourself and you have to study, learn and use better techniques. It’s what all other professionals are doing…