I Read All the Books on Sales

Book-Smart vs. Street-Smart

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them,

we learn them by doing them.”

Aristotle

In a recent conversation with a founder, he shared that he has never worked in sales; and that in preparation for his start-up he read several books and watched every podcast of a certain sales guru; and now he was ready to sell the services of his start-up and build and lead a sales team.

This conversation leads me to weigh the value of learning from books vs. the benefit of experience. Is it, as Will Schwalbe points out, “…that everything you need to know you can find in a book?”

Or is Andy Matuschak right when he writes, "books are surprisingly bad at conveying knowledge, and readers mostly don’t realize it.”

It is certainly true that there is quite literally nothing that has not been written about. Whatever topic you can think of, there is printed or digital text available to read. As Ezra Vogel points out, doing so has significant advantages: "The knowledge we gain from books and formal education enables us to learn about things that we have no opportunity to experience in daily life. We can study all the places in the world and learn from people will never meet in our lifetime, just by reading about them in books. We can also develop our analytical skills and learn how to view and interpret the world around us in different ways. Furthermore, we can learn from the past by reading books. In this way, we won’t repeat the mistakes of others and can build on their achievements.”

Overcoming time and distance is a key benefit of theoretical learning from books. It is a tell-tale sign of a book smart person that they can share knowledge around historical events, far-away places, generally unrelated to their own life.

In contrast, any of my own experiences have to happen in my time and location. As the phrase indicates, a street-smart person possesses know-how directly related and stemming from the streets they walked.

This practical experience has its own set of methods and benefits:

- Learning by doing: “Learning by doing means learning from experiences resulting directly from one's own actions, as contrasted with learning from watching others perform, reading others' instructions or descriptions, or listening to others' instructions or lectures.” (Hayne W. Reese)

The best example of this is languages. The best way to learn a new language is by use; to speak it, surrounded by native speakers, ideally immersed in the culture on location.

- Learning from one’s own mistakes: “No one is immune to making mistakes – we are human, after all! But if we simply apologize and carry on as before, we're in danger of repeating the same errors. When we don't learn from our mistakes, we inflict unnecessary stress on ourselves and on others.” (Mind Tools)

Making a mistake rallies our attention. And it doesn’t have to be a dramatic near-drowning experience when sailing in weather beyond your capabilities. Being wrong on a sales forecast certainly makes us more diligent, attentive, and applying different methods or factors the next time.

- Relational-frame learning: “Any objects or events that are relationally framed become verbal – part of the world as known through relational frames. As we frame objects, events, and people through our interactions with the socioverbal community, we elaborate our network of related stimuli and, through transformation of functions, the world increasingly takes on new verbally derived functions, beginning when we first learn to frame words and objects as the same and likely continuing throughout most of our lives.” (newharbinger.com)

Words matter, and as we read, we put each word into a context. Doing so as part of an experience or interaction creates the "right" framing, or at least a "better" framing vis-à-vis the theoretical approach.

- Learning through experimentation: “Experimentation is a central practice for groups trying to collaborate more effectively, especially those that are trying to tackle complex problems. In particular, experimentation is a powerful way for a group to learn and improve collectively and quickly.” (fasterthan20.com)

Crawl, walk, run, fly. These steps or stages to be followed in this specific order are part of so many approaches in business. After hiring a new sales rep, you don’t take them on their first day to your most valuable target to pitch. They shadow an experienced rep first, then try pitching to smaller accounts, before tackling a big guy, often after weeks or months of crawling and walking.

- Learning by immediately applying a new skill: “There's a big difference between absorbing information and putting what you've learned into practice. Without doing the latter, the training you've received will go to waste, so it's important to have a strategy for implementing your learning.” (Forbes Coaches Council)

One of the ways to ensure that new learning is immediately applied is by way of having a feedback buddy. E.g., in a call center setting, two agents paired up as buddies, setting 10 minutes of every day aside to share a new learning or experience, and the steps taken to adjust and apply the new skill while holding each other accountable.

- Trial and error: “Try something (Guess), if it does not work, guess again. Over time, our guesses become more educated - and we tend to require fewer trials to reach our solutions.” (hitbullseye.com)

Messaging and positioning of a new product are rarely only a theoretical exercise. They require repeated field testing with potential clients, leading to adjustments and modifications until successful. And they then continue to be subject to revisions as clients, markets, decision-makers, and other factors change – in reality, an ongoing process of trial and error.

My conclusion: Let's try to be book-smart and street-smart. Knowledge from books expands the horizon and lays a foundation. Learning through one’s own experience, doing so continuously, and bringing this proactively to the table every time, creates true expertise.

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Will Schwalbe – The things we can really learn from books

Andy Matuschak – Why books don’t work

Ezra Vogel – Book Knowledge vs. Experience

Hayne W. Reese – The Learning-by-Doing Principle

Mind Tools – How to Learn From Your Mistakes

Hitbullseye.com – Analytical Reasoning: Trial and Error Method

Fasterthan20.com – Learning Through Experimentation

Forbes Coaches Council – Put It Into Practice: 14 Actionable Ways to Implement your Learning

Newharbinger.com – Relational Frame Theory 101: An Introduction

Photo by Anne Gosewehr