One thing I learned from many job interviews was importance of warm-ups and "practice swings".

Back when I was a sales rep for other people, I switched companies quite a few times.

After going through this a few times, I started to notice a pattern with my interviewing abilities.

I found that I never got the jobb I wanted if it was the first or second one I interviewed with upon starting my search.

In fact I figured out after searching for a jobb a few different times over the years that if I found a real exciting company at the beginning of my search, it was pretty likely that I wouldn’t get the jobb.

This was because for me personally, I needed warm-up interviews. I needed "practice swings".

As I’ve gotten older, I have discovered that this is an overall learning pattern for me, and I am OK with it.

Whenever I learn something new, I need to walk through the process fully, and get a feel for how it will work, what’s required, where the pitfalls are, etc.

Once I do this, I am much better equipped to go full guns and perform at a high level.

Back when I was single, a buddy of mine and I used to talk about having "practice dates".

Practice dates were just like warmup interviews. It was the same situation for me. If after having gotten out of a relationship I was much better off going out on a number of dates with different women before finding one that I clicked with.

I mean one of the most frustrating experiences for me was to meet a really hot woman as soon as I started dating, cause I wasn’t warmed up. My game wasn’t mentally ready.

So I learned in dating as with interviewing that I was best off just getting going on the process, and to *not* focus on going after the best prospects first.

And I believe that my experience holds true for many people prospecting for sales as well.

If your products are such that you need or will want to hunt down some big name deals, you are probably best served by doing some warmups and taking some "practice swings" to get your game first.

You can work out the kinks, find the problems and fix them, see what works, and determine what you didn’t know and need to know more about or do better at.

Oh, and it takes the pressure off too.

It takes the pressure off because you are both busy do something productive and money producing and you are developing your confidence by working at something new under more forgiving circumstances.

Sell with Pride,

Shameless Shamus

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