10/12/2023-Did ya read this book?

Published on

Skill

Reaching and maintaining success in sales requires self-driven study…and experience. Read the book Peak and you’ll give yourself a gift of lesson number one: always work on your skills.

It’s mandatory to continue working on your skill development if you want to succeed in sales. ("Yes," you reply! But how’s your commitment to this?)

If your skills stop growing, you can expect those commission checks to shrink; maybe slowly, but they’ll shrink.

Peak by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool is a book that will teach you the value of "deliberate practice" …practicing the right way.

Wanna get better at objection handling? Practice. But practice the right way. Want to get better at asking smart and strategic questions…practice.

Your individual skill development requires practice. Learning how to practice right is the key.

Do

Obviously, you won’t start and finish Peak
today, but you should at least buy the book…today. Doing so will reinforce your commitment to professional growth and self-driven skill development.

Through great storytelling and facts presented in the book, the authors address two popular myths – and the revelations are enlightening:
1. Genetically prescribed characteristics limit competencies and abilities. FALSE.
2. All it takes to improve is effort. Again…FALSE.

Unfortunately, developing selling skills is not easy, or everyone could and would do it, right?

Commit to reading the book, and you’ll be committing to your self-driven skill development.

Ever heard of the 10,000-hour rule? Malcolm Gladwell popularized it in his book

    Outliers

. The research of the 10k/hr. theory is based on the research of Anders Ericsson, a Ph.D. and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University and the author of Peak.

In Peak, Ericsson takes a whack at the 10,000-hour rule thing and concludes that "talent is overrated." (Whoa!) With data, Ericsson uses

    Peak

to present that hard work still rules the day.

As you know, success in selling is about maintaining a high level of performance through numerous behaviors and activities. In the book, Ericsson shares research conducted on chess grandmasters, musicians, ballerinas, and others deemed experts in their craft. The research conclusively shows that deliberate practice trumps innate talent in the battle for the podium in any given area of expertise.

This book needs to be on top of your bookshelf…with dog-eared pages and lots of tabs to prove it was used not only for entertainment. It’s a performance bible and should be part of your individual skill development gospel!

Oomph

Please don’t think you’re off the hook for reading Peak by watching this 7-minute video summary.

Books offer details, nuances, and inspirations that often can’t be captured elsewhere, which is why you need to read Peak.

If nothing less, this short video will motivate you to read the book and commit to a serious professional growth plan. The main theme, "purposeful practice," makes total sense, but understanding the how is why you must stick your head in the book!

Quote of the day

"This is a fundamental truth about any sort of practice: if you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will never improve." K. Anders Ericsson