Sales Periodisation Model
Top-level football today swears by it. Yet it only entered the English game just over twenty years ago. There have been many credited with revolutionising the way the game is played and prepared for at certain points.
One such example I read recently was of the self-styled Special One.
Fresh from bagging the-cup-with-the-big-ears in 2005, José Mourinho exploded into Chelsea. Ready to change things up. Not just backed by gigabucks, but bringing new methods too. It was potent match.
Pre-season training gave his squad their first breath of the hurricane incoming.
There was no running.
In my youth, there were many sessions where barely a ball was seen, let alone kicked. That was yesterday. Training now involved playing. Here's how former England international, Joe Cole, described the scene.
"There were possession rondos and three-against-three games, four against four, five against five. Short, sharp, exhausting and designed to practise certain patterns of play ... Drinks breaks? Timed too. Then onto the next pitch that had already been set up for the next exercise. No standing around, no idle chit-chat, no pinging balls at the kit man’s head 20 yards away. My mind was working constantly, my body was aching. But I loved it."
Among examples;
"If you pressed at the wrong time, and you were passed around, then you got told at the next timed drinks break. As you were gulping down water, José would be in your ear. “When the ball goes in here, you go here,” he would say. “Now do it again.” "
If the difference between this and Sales training is clear to you, then you may sense what you've likely been served (or are serving) is not fit for purpose.
We have our equivalent of endless running. And it is equally useless for anyone aspiring to be Elite.
A couple of slides talked through. A handout emailed 'round. Maybe a role-play, quick and half-hearted at best. But never mind, the trainer has trained, what a top coach. Not.
Yes, unlike us footballers train everyday. Whilst we're almost always 'doing', there's still plenty of scope to switch up our practice sessions this way.
We have our versions of rondos aka pig-in-the-middle quickfire passing circles trying to miss a player in the middle, and the like.
Whether it be a central message, foundational slide or closing routine.
Set it up. Try it. Make mistakes. Do it again. And again. Make it done right second nature.
As Mourinho is oft quoted, "you never see a pianist running around a piano".
Periodise your selling efforts. Proper coaching.