Action & Expertise combine to create Success… be sure you’re taking one, building the second, and defining the third for yourself! @upyourtelesales

Yesterday was all about Action – today lets talk about

Expertise

• building the second,

This is where we make sure our actions will move us in the right direction! That the steps we’re taking move us forward. That what we do every day makes us BETTER at finding opportunities, defining & qualifying them, then earning their business.

Malcolm Gladwell talks a lot about expertise in his book The Outliers, mentioning time and time again that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert – regardless of your field. I don’t disagree at all, but would like to add that you have to be practicing the RIGHT things.

Practice makes permanent ~ David Dolbear

Imagine if a ballerina practiced ‘en pointe’ incorrectly – not only would it not be graceful, she would probably hurt herself. The more incorrect practice the worse the injury would be PLUS it certainly isn’t making her into a prima ballerina.

Now that we’ve determined that we need to practice the right stuff – here is a breakdown of what 10,000 of practice AT WORK might look like:

• 40 hours x 50 weeks (see I’m giving you vacation time) = 2000 hours/year
• minus the 2 hrs/day we aren’t really working… leaves us with 1500 hours/year
• of that 1500 hours – we might be focusing 1/2 the time = 750 hours/year
• rounding DOWN – it will take us 13 YEARS to become an expert

Have you ever looked at it that way? Even if you add an extra hour each week of working toward expertise it nocks off a chunk of time to achieve expert status.

An extra 24 MINUTES each day will bring that time to 12 years instead of 13 (if you really do the math it is 11.76 yrs vs. 13.33 but who’s keeping track). For some people that would mean popping in an educational CD instead of listening to talk radio on their commute each day.

Add to that reading a sales book or *gasp* two, each year and there you are an expert!

Every single day if we are working to be a little better at what we do. Taking tiny steps forward toward expertise, you’ll be amazed at how quickly mastery will come.

Give yourself a leg up on the competition – spend 24 minutes today getting better at your craft, then come back tomorrow for Success.