What do neuroscience & physics have to do with Sales?

I used to be very proud of my memory. Then I adjusted to be proud of my recall and as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned that my recall isn’t what it used to be. I’ve had to get better at keeping notes handy, practicing more for talks and presentations, and generally retrieving data. I was wondering if there was a better way or a more practiced way to improve both memory and recall.

Queue the title. Sales is about helping people acquire a solution to one or more problems to achieve an outcome and most in the profession would agree people by from people they have established a trusting relationship with. Google definition of trust = firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.

TLDR:

• Based on neuroscience: practicing, spaced rehearsing, self-testing, and reminiscing all reinforce memory. 
• A great way to accomplish all of these is the Feynman (Famous Physicist) technique:
• Step 1: Practice & Spaced Rehearsal: generate or review knowledge
• Step 2: Self-Test: Try to summarize yourself in a short & simple manner
• Step 3: Identify Gaps: go back to Step 1
• Step 4: Revise & Simplify: generate the shortest, simplest story possible that delivers the message
• Repeat until you can explain to a child in simple terms (we’re all at home give it a shot with your kids or parents =p)
• combining the techniques for memory and a method that incorporates these techniques can help us learn, remember, and recall what is important to us

Let’s focus down on the someone, thats you. 

Reliability is consistency and accuracy. Do you have a consistent view of your customer that is accurate? Their likes and dislikes, their challenges both personally and professionally, preferences for engagement and how they evaluate solutions and make purchases?

Truth. Is easy do you tell the truth good and bad to your customer? Is it consistent and accurate?

Ability. Does your customer believe that you care about them and their challenges? In your ability to solve their problems? In you as a trusted advisor in the specific field being addressed? Are you able to communicate this consistently and accurately to multiple audiences?

A few things themes repeat in the above. Namely can you learn, remember, and recall information in a consistent and accurate manner? This applies to knowing your customer, knowing your brand and it’s benefits, knowing the messaging that is key to imparting this information.

Let’s come back to learning, memory, and recall. Neuroscience tells us how to train our memory and recall and one of the greatest physicists of our time got so good at learning and simplifying things there is a method named after him. Let’s put them together and both remember and recall what’s important to us.

Neuroscience angle

I just finished a great book about memory Called “Remember” by Lisa Genova (get it here:https://www.lisagenova.com/book-inner). The end of the book gives us a straight forward list of things to do to enhance our memory. I will focus on how she summarizes memory. “We remember what we repeat. practicing, [spaced] rehearsing, self-testing, and reminiscing all reinforce memory.” 

Lisa caps off the book with the following list of what you can do about your memory. This is a great list and all are relevant to add context as you work on these:

1. Pay attention - don’t multi-task. Give the topic your attention.
2. See it - visualize the memory. When writing use something you can visualize: all caps, highlight, chart, add a picture.
3. Make it meaningful - meaning is king. Relate to stuff you care about. Like a story.
4. Use your imagination - creative visual imagery. Bizarre, surpringly, or random visuals and it’ll stick. Wild and unique is the goal.
5. Location, location, location - place it in a location in your minds eye. Like the middle of your living room. Make a guided tour of a place you know for places to store.
6. Make it about you - the superiority illusion. You’ll remember something about yourself better than others. Personal history or opinions. You’re the star of the mental show.
7. Look for the drama - emotionally charged events are remembered. Add emotion and/or surprise. 
8. Mix it up - sameness is boring and boring isn’t memorable. Make it unique. George Cluny in a red car is the driveway.
9. Practice makes perfect - repetition and rehearsal. Spaced out learning, over learning, self testing. Try ideas that you can review: Diary, make it public and chronological: social media, planner, calendar
10. Use strong retrieval queues - queues can be anything. Time of day, pill box, Cookie Monster on a talking horse. Smell is particularly powerful.
11. Be positive - positive and negative reinforcement works. Be positive about memory and it’ll improve.
12. Externalize - use aids. Lists, sticky notes, calendars and other reminders. Stop worrying and write it down. Use digital tools (sharing the job of storage) doesn’t reduce memory its just another pathway to retrieval or augmentation. Sfdc anyone? Account plan, opp record.
13. Context matters - How you learn is important for how you retrieve memories. E.g.: if you call customers on your computer via zoom, practice your pitch in front of your computer.
14. Chill out - Stress is bad for memory. Mindfulness, gratitude, exercise can help to manage stress
15. Sleep - 7-9 hours is needed to consolidate memory. Lack of sleep can cause amnesia and will effect your memory.
16. Big B Baker vs Little b baker. Big B Baker as a last name is hard to remember. Little b baker as a profession makes you think of the baking hat and this context is encode in your brain more than any proper name. so remember people named baker with a hat and flour all over them.

Physics angle

Richard Feynman was not only a great scientist but also known as the great explainer (great article here: https://medium.com/taking-note/learning-from-the-feynman-technique-5373014ad230). His technique for learning and teaching I’ve found personally useful and combined with Lisa’s recommendations on how to remember forms a powerful way to learn, remember, and recall information.

Basics of the Feynman technique I summarize this way. Collect information on a topic and consume it (read, listen etc), try to reproduce it yourself (write, speak, etc), go back to consumption until you can reproduce it fully. Then simplify and shorten until its as short as possible and simple enough in language to be taught to your child or parent (assuming they don’t know the topic).

Let’s put that in a practical list joined with Lisa’s recommendations.

Feynman & Genova Technique:

Step 1: Practice & Space Rehearsal - write down or record everything you know about the topic. (Think enablement material). For repeat visits rehearse what you missed (gaps).

Step 2: Self-Test. Attempt to reproduce shortest simplest way.

• Speaking in plain terms - no jargon. Use plain and well understood terms to explain.
• Brevity - fewest amount of words possible.

Step 3: Identify gaps in knowledge [result of self-testing. Any information you couldn’t reproduce from memory go back to step 1]

Step 4: Revise & Simplify (plain and short), repeat until its a simple and short as possible while still conveying the point [reminiscing (tell the story to people, write a script/document/presentation) over and over removing extraneous words until they message is clear & complete while being simple and short]. Goal is each revision to be shorter and clearer than the last.

Sounds simple right? I find it’s a humbling experience trying to generate content (you’ll appreciate marketing after this) and making it simple and teachable (I’ve found nothing as hard, also rewarding, as teaching an idea to another person).

As I’ve practiced this i find that i have a lot of notes that I’ve crafted carefully and never refer to as the information is gladly stuck in my head.

So for my job in Sales Neuroscience tells me the most potent techniques to remember and recall and Physics provided the simplest method by which i can practice those techniques.

I hope you’ll remember this and your next presentation.

Summary:

• Based on neuroscience: practicing, spaced rehearsing, self-testing, and reminiscing all reinforce memory. 
• A great way to accomplish all of these is the Feynman (Famous Physicist) technique:
• Step 1: Practice & Spaced Rehearsal: generate or review knowledge
• Step 2: Self-Test: Try to summarize yourself in a short & simple manner
• Step 3: Identify Gaps: go back to Step 1
• Step 4: Revise & Simplify: generate the shortest, simplest story possible that delivers the message
• Repeat until you can explain to a child in simple terms (we’re all at home give it a shot with your kids or parents =p)
• combining the techniques for memory and a method that incorporates these techniques can help us learn, remember, and recall what is important to us