The Hall of Fame Basketball player, Bill Walton was graduating from UCLA with every accolade a college player could garner. His equally famous Hall of Fame coach, John Wooden, had struggled to keep the headstrong iconoclastic Bill in line for the previous four years. It was not always an easy relationship.

A few days before Bill left the world of the student athlete, Bill and John had the kind of private conversation that only those who won together, (rarely lost) together and often fought with each other could have. At the end of the meeting, both were in tears. Coach Wooden gave Bill a plaque as a graduation gift. It said, "It is amazing how much you can learn after you know everything."

Having trained sellers for more than 25 years, we have met all kinds of wonderful professionals. From freshly minted college graduates to the seller who has been at it for 40 years, we have met them all. Our favorite type, however, are the veteran sellers who know "everything."

My personal favorite example from those we have met, is an IT sales executive (we’ll call him Paul) who proudly announced the day we met, "I need you to get my folks to be as good as me, I don’t have the time to do it myself." Paul was bright, ambitious, assertive and charming. He also had quite an ego, though his track record justified a certain amount of personal satisfaction.

As we met several times, it became evident that there was nothing he felt he hadn’t already mastered regarding selling. In our third encounter he even announced, "there is nothing you, your company or anyone else can teach me that I already don’t know." I nodded, congratulated him and, with his permission, posed several questions that led to the following exchange:

Me: "Paul, do you play golf?"

Paul: "Avidly. I am an eight handicap."

Me: "Hmm. What is it you don’t understand about golf?"

Paul: "Don’t try to trap me, I see where you are going. But I’ll play along. I understand everything about the game of golf."

Me: "Then why are you an eight?"

Paul: "You must be kidding. Do you know how good an eight is?"

Me: "All too well. I am long way from an eight. Let’s switch gears if I might. Ever lost a deal?"

Paul: "This is getting tedious. Get to it. Of course I have lost deals."

Me: "I am being utterly sincere and not playing games. If you understand everything about golf and about sales, why are you not on the PGA tour and why did you ever lose?"

I’ll stop there. I don’t want to belabor the point.

Sales is a science. Few scientists would ever announce that they have learned everything. Few golfers would ever announce that their game couldn’t improve. The most famous in every discipline work hard at improvement and are always looking to learn.

The epilogue of our experience with Paul was quite interesting. Wanting more to prove that we had nothing to teach him, then because he felt it would be worthwhile, he joined the first cadre of participants we trained. He was a personality that filled the room. The result, of course, was that none of the participants was particularly comfortable speaking up. Whenever I would pose a question to the group all eyes would turn to Paul who gladly answered. He was sometimes wrong. When it came time for the first group exercise, Paul joined one of the groups. To everyone’s horror, one of the junior sellers innocently said to Paul at one point, "That’s counter to what the science tells us. Should we do it your way or follow the science?" Everyone held their breath. After a pregnant pause, Paul said, "You’re right to ask. Follow the science." When the teams came back together for the full group debrief, Paul asked for time "to make an important announcement." He told the story and ended with admitting to the group at large that indeed he realized he didn’t know everything. Further, he commented, "I only wish I had participated in training like this earlier in my career!"

Because sales involves skills, you are either getting netter or getting worse - in which category do you find yourself?

One word of caution. Many sales training providers will announce that they, in fact, can solve any sales problem. Although that is not the same as saying, "we know everything", it’s darn close. If you are interested in having information on how to choose an outside provider, get the checklist. There are way too many providers who can’t solve sales challenges, even though they make that assertion.