183: COVID-19 Sales University

<p>Covid -19 Sales University</p> <p> </p> <p>Living in Brisbane, I would commute to and from work by car listening to audio tapes on business subjects like sales, customer service, negotiating, speaking skills, etc.  Moving back to Japan in 1992, I continued commuting to work and continued to turn my vehicle into a university on wheels.  It is amazing how much you can learn from listening to smart people, with rich experience and fresh ideas.  In those ancient days, we didn’t have YouTube, podcasts or the internet like today.  I used to buy big bulky plastic box collections of audio tapes and play them in the car while commuting or on a Walkman while I was running in the mornings. </p> <p> </p> <p>Fast forward to lockdown city and here are all these salespeople sitting around with a swarm of irritants, difficulties, obstacles, disappointments and frustrations enveloping them.  Clients are tucked up at home and not buying.  Companies are having their share prices gutted, whole industries are being vanquished, unemployment levels surge as we go into mental lockdown about purchasing anything.  Where is my commission when I can’t sell anything?  How do I get through the long dog days of nothing to do?</p> <p> </p> <p>It is amazing.  We have over 950 videos available for free on our YouTube channel, over 800 podcasts on iTunes and over 1700 blogs on LinkedIn and it is all free.  I am not alone.  All the major leaders in the field of sales have tons of free content, because we are all converts to content marketing, where we offer our wares for free believing that you will eventually recognise our worth and be prepared to buy something from us. There are endless books available on all aspects of sales, there are self paced adult learning courses, there are MP3 audio programmes – the list just goes on and on.</p> <p> </p> <p>In normal times, salespeople are too busy or too lazy to find the time to further educate themselves.  Maybe they got into sales by accident and have never had the concept of investing in themselves