How to Be a Rapid Learner When You're Time Starved

Rapid Learning Mini-Course #7: Click here to watch the video.

Yay! You made it to the last video in this Crash Course. If you’re like most people, you’re a bit overwhelmed. Learning agility – and specifically it’s subset, rapid learning – is a totally new concept to you. And, it seems like a ton of work.

You have to do a 30,000-foot scan, ensuring you’re dumping things out of your brain as you go. Then you have to Chunk, Sequence and Practice – all before you’re ready for prime time.

How in the world can you do all this when you’re already working so darn hard – and such long hours?

I hear this objection all the time.

The truth of it is, most of us are on cruise control in every aspect of our life and business. According to neuroscience research, our brain is a pattern-making machine. Even doing something for a few weeks creates neural pathways that are hard for us to override.

And, within short order, we stop trying new things. We stop experimenting to see if we can get better results. We just do the same thing over and over and over again.

When people stop responding to our emails or voicemails, we have to search harder and harder for more prospects. When fewer of our initial meetings turn into serious conversations, again, we’re working harder and harder to keep our pipeline full. When we’re constantly losing opportunities to competitors – or worse yet, the status quo – we have to work harder and harder to achieve our goals.

Nearly all of us invest a huge proportion of our time on activities that give us diminishing returns.

We’re batting our heads against failure on a daily basis, yet we don't even question what we’re doing. It’s normal.

Do you honestly have time for that? Personally, I don’t. I want to figure out what works, so I can most efficiently do my work. I want to have maximum impact with every client interaction. And, I want a life beyond my job.

To be successful today, it’s imperative to open ourselves up to learning new ways of going to market, establishing credibility, ensuring relevance and becoming an invaluable resource. We need to continually grow and adapt to new ways of interfacing with our prospects and customers. The option, as I said earlier, is to continue to work in a way that gives us diminishing returns.

To me, that makes no sense. Hopefully, it sounds like insanity to you too.

Your sales success – and truly, your career success – depends on your ability to be an agile learner – a rapid learner.

When you master this, everything else is easier. Everything. I challenged you at the onset of this series to learn LinkedIn. Now, I’m challenging you, on a greater scale, to learn rapid learning. It’s a master skill that will serve you well wherever you go. And, it’s in high demand.

Did You Miss These Rapid Learning Mini-Courses?

• Intro: Can You Learn How to Sell – Or Do You Need Innate Ability?
• Video #1: Rapid Learning is Critical for Sales Success
• Video #2: First Step to Rapidly Learn LinkedIn: Do a Brain Dump
• Video #3: Use Chunking to Make Sense Out of LinkedIn Chaos
• Video #4: Sequence Your LinkedIn Learning Plan
• Video #5: Research the #1 Facet of LinkedIn: Headline and Summary
• Video #6: Practice Your LinkedIn Profile Before Going Live

Jill Konrath is the author of three bestselling sales books: Agile Selling, Selling to Big Companies and SNAP Selling. She's a frequent speaker at sales meetings and conferences. Check out the tons of free sales resources on her website: www.jillkonrath.com/sales-resources.