14 ‘Business as Usual’ Tips, Part 5

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

In this series, Dan Beaulieu will share 14 “business as usual” tips for selling without visiting customers during the COVID-19 outbreak. In Part 5, he shares tips on continuing your professional development during this lockdown, while making sure to take much-needed time off to rest your mind.

Tip 9: Work on Your Craft

Selling is a craft. Just like art, music, or sports, the more you work on your craft, the better you will be at it. Just like anything worth doing right, selling is a full-time, “day and night” job. You have to be reading books, looking at videos, and studying great salespeople all the time. Whether you are studying a car salesperson, the person who sells knives at the state fair, or Joel Osteen, you should always be learning from people who are good at what they do. If you are serious about your sales career, then treat it as a craft, and work on it all the time.

Tip 10: Watch Television

Yes, you read that right. There are great shows on television today, from “Shark Tank” to “The Profit,” “Undercover Boss,” and “The Deed”—not to mention YouTube videos by some of the greatest marketing and sales professionals who ever lived, including Zig Ziglar and Seth Godin to great advertising geniuses like David Ogilvy and Mary Wells Lawrence. Sit down for an hour every night, and watch something you can learn from. An entire MBA business course could be based on “The Sopranos.” I once told the pastor of my church that there were a lot of moral lessons to be learned from “Breaking Bad.” He said, “Remind me never to let you preach when the bishop visits.” Anyway, take it from me—there’s a lot to learn about your craft of selling from watching TV.

Editor’s Note: Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.