CPR for Sales: Consistent, Persistent, and Resilient
Most of you are probably familiar with CPR — Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation.
I'm a big fan of CPR, and the older I get, the bigger a fan I become. In fact, I want everyone around me to be familiar with CPR, just in case I ever need it.
But there's another kind of CPR that every salesperson should know.
What Does CPR Mean in Sales?
CPR for sales stands for Consistent, Persistent, and Resilient.
These three qualities are fundamental to sales success:
Consistent: Do the right things, at the right time, all the time, every time.
Persistent: Stay with the job until it's done. Keep moving the opportunity forward.
Resilient: Learn to deal with rejection, setbacks, and the emotional ups and downs that come with selling.
Just like CPR skills need to be practiced and refreshed, sales skills need to be practiced and reinforced if you want them to become second nature.
And that's where I learned an important lesson myself.
Failing the Test
Recently, I decided it was a good time to re-take my CPR training.
Digging up some of my old CPR information, I asked a colleague to put me through an impromptu test, just to see how well prepared I was to take the real one.
Imagine my dismay when I — the great one, the all-seeing, all-knowing, the over-refreshed one — failed the test!
It's not that I failed miserably, but I probably would have done more damage than good.
How could that be?
I'd been through the training several times. So why didn't I remember the three simple steps of CPR?
Then it came to me.
I didn't remember the things I'd been taught because I wasn't practicing them on a regular basis.
That's understandable. You can't exactly go around giving CPR to perfectly healthy people, and finding people who are experiencing a medical emergency isn't something you can schedule for practice.
But the experience got me thinking about something that happens all the time in sales.
Sales Training Has the Same Problem
Think about what happens after a typical sales training workshop.
Salespeople attend the training.
They learn new ideas.
They practice some new skills.
They leave motivated and enthusiastic.
And then they go back to their regular jobs.
A few weeks later, many of the things they learned have already started to fade.
Why?
Because learning something isn't the same as practicing it.
I thought back to when I was getting my multi-engine rating as a private pilot.
Almost all of the ten hours of training consisted of my instructor "pulling" an engine and my going through the "dead-foot, dead-engine" routine over and over and over again until it became second nature.
Even then, whenever I went flying, I would review the procedure in my mind several times during my drive to the airport.
In other words, I didn't just learn the skill.
I practiced it, reviewed it, and refreshed it.
That's how skills become second nature.
Sales skills work the same way.
Get Sharp — and Stay Sharp
This is what happens to many people who take sales training workshops.
They walk away with a lot of good ideas, hopefully some new skills, but usually no plan to reinforce or refresh the training over the long haul.
That's a problem.
At The Salesforce Trainers, we've always believed that effective sales training needs to go beyond the training event itself.
That's one of the reasons we developed our flagship ProSell™ sales training and adoption program with practice sessions that allow participants to develop their skills, receive peer feedback, and get individual coaching when needed.
But even then, we have to ask a bigger question:
What happens after the workshop?
That's where the real development begins.
Practice Is What Makes Training Stick
As sales training professionals, we've continually discussed how to help participants continue the personal development that begins during training.
Ultimately, the decision to continue begins with the salesperson.
But the next level of support and reinforcement is the company they work for and, more specifically, the sales manager.
Too many companies do very little in the way of post-training reinforcement.
No wonder people fall back into their old ways and old habits.
It's simply easier and more comfortable to stay where you are than it is to keep moving forward.
The answer isn't necessarily more training.
Sometimes the answer is more practice, coaching, and reinforcement of the training people have already received.
The Sales Manager's Role
Sales managers have an enormous role to play in keeping sales skills sharp.
They can reinforce training during:
- One-on-one meetings
- Sales team meetings
- Pipeline reviews
- Call coaching
- Role-playing exercises
- Opportunity reviews
- Sales huddles
A manager doesn't need to deliver another full-day training program.
Sometimes five or ten minutes spent practicing one specific skill is enough.
Ask a salesperson to demonstrate how they would handle an objection.
Have them practice opening a discovery conversation.
Review how they qualified an opportunity.
Ask what they could have done differently on their last customer call.
These small moments of reinforcement can keep skills alive long after the formal training has ended.
Tools That Help
In the past, we developed a set of Post-Training Exercises for sales managers to use during sales meetings, complete with guidelines for conducting mini-training sessions.
There were enough exercises for an entire year of reinforcement.
We also developed a Post-Training Agenda/Plan with up to 49 simple exercises that participants could complete themselves after the training was over.
Even doing one exercise a week would provide almost a year of ongoing practice.
And because salespeople don't always need another lecture — they need someone to help them apply what they've learned — we also developed a Sales Manager's Post-Training Coaching Record.
The idea was simple:
Don't just train the salesperson. Give the manager a system for reinforcing the training.
That's what turns sales training from an event into a process.
Back to CPR for Sales
Years ago, we developed our own CPR for Sales Success.
It stands for:
Consistent
Do the right things, at the right time, all the time, every time.
Successful salespeople don't rely solely on motivation.
They develop good habits and execute them consistently.
Prospecting.
Following up.
Preparing for customer meetings.
Managing opportunities.
Asking good questions.
Updating the information that matters.
The specific activities will vary by organization, but consistency is fundamental.
Persistent
Be like a postage stamp. Stick to the job until it's done.
Sales doesn't always happen on the first call.
Or the second.
Or the third.
There will be unanswered emails, postponed meetings, objections, competitors, lost opportunities, and prospects who simply aren't ready to move.
Persistence means continuing to work the opportunity without becoming a nuisance.
Stay focused on the customer, keep creating value, and keep moving the conversation forward.
Resilient
Learn to roll with the negative influences and emotional swings that impact most salespeople.
Sales can be an emotional profession.
You can have a fantastic customer meeting in the morning and lose a major opportunity in the afternoon.
You can have a great month followed by a difficult one.
You can hear "no" repeatedly before finally hearing "yes."
Resilience doesn't mean ignoring setbacks.
It means learning from them, maintaining perspective, and getting back to work.
CPR for Sales Requires Practice
That's really the lesson behind the entire CPR analogy.
Knowing something isn't enough.
You have to practice it.
Salespeople need opportunities to apply what they've learned, receive feedback, make adjustments, and try again.
Sales managers need to reinforce the behaviors their teams are expected to demonstrate.
And organizations need to create a sales environment where continuous improvement is part of the job rather than something that happens only when someone attends a training course.
That's how skills become second nature.
Don't Let Sales Training Fade Away
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is treating sales training as an event.
Training is important.
But training alone doesn't create lasting behavior change.
Training develops the skill.
Practice builds the skill.
Coaching reinforces the skill.
Sales leadership makes the skill stick.
That's why our approach to sales training goes beyond simply putting people in a classroom. We focus on helping sales organizations develop the behaviors, processes, and management practices that support sustained performance.
If your team needs to develop its sales skills, explore the Salesforce Training Academy or learn more about custom sales and Salesforce training built around your team's needs.
Practice CPR Every Day
So, what does CPR mean in sales?
Consistent. Persistent. Resilient.
Practice CPR every day.
Stay sharp.
Stay successful.
Stay professional.
And most importantly, don't assume that because you learned a skill once, you'll remember how to use it when you need it.
The best salespeople don't just learn. They practice, reinforce, and keep getting better.
Don't just train your sales team. Help them make the skills stick.
