Get It Perfect, Then Go Further (Advice for Sports Ticket Sales Reps)

As an amateur piano player, my "gold standard" of musical artistry is the jazz/rock of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (above), the duo known as Steely Dan.

The multi-Grammy winning pair are legendary for many things, but among them is their rehearsal regimen before each recording session. They were well-known for "practicing" their musicians TO DEATH.?

When Becker and Fagen walked into a rehearsal, they knew the sound they were after on every song.?They got it by using a different blend of musicians on every track, practicing it with them over and over until it was second nature. Often these professional musicians, many of whom were used to laying down their tracks in 1 or 2 takes, would often be working on the same chart for DAYS at a time together before they even walked into the recording studio.

Once they got to the point where they thought it was "perfect", they would then instruct the players to go further.??

"One interesting thing about Donald and Walter is that perfection is not what they were after.?They were after something that you wanted to listen to over and over again.?So we would work past the perfection point until it became natural; until it sounded almost improvised, in a way.?So it was like a two-step process; one was to get to perfection, and then the other was to get beyond it and to loosen it up a little bit so that it didn't have to be this perfect squeaky clean product."

--?Dean Parks, studio guitarist, on working with Becker and Fagen on the multi-platinum album "Aja" (1977)??

The best sales reps project that same level of natural confidence. It seems effortless to everyone else, but only the rep knows that it sounds that way because it's so well-rehearsed that it has become second nature to them.? Think about the last amazing sales presentation you heard from someone else. Did it sound perfect and squeaky clean, or did it sound natural, almost improvised?

Even the most experienced sales reps need continual training and practice, not only to keep them sharp, but to continually try new techniques and make a good thing even better. Tonya Sharpe, Regional VP of Sales for Live Nation Entertainment, said it this way when her people took the ISBI 360 Certification in Ticket Sales: "Our veterans of 18 and 20 years have grown so much, and they’ve all said that they’ve learned a great deal of practical, usable information each week (from the ISBI 360 training).”?

Practice and repetition. The musicians that Steely Dan hired were willing to take their game up a notch through practice and repetition. The results speak for themselves.

Are your people up to the challenge?

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--?Bill Guertin?is Chief Learning Officer of?ISBI 360,?a training, sales and recruitment company that increases revenue and results for the business side of sports & entertainment. Reach out to Bill at?[email protected], or set a time to talk with him one-on-one at?www.calendly.com/bill-isbi360.