Walk Like a Giant, Sell Like a Madman

Chapter 3. Becoming Accountable through Personal Partnering

In just about every discipline a few individuals become standouts, but if you do a little research, you usually discover that these people had partners along the way who shared their enthusiasm and interests, challenged them to excel, and supported their efforts. Seven-time champion of the Tour de France Lance Armstrong had teammates, coaches, and trainers. Likewise, Thomas Edison relied on a steady stream of young inventors to fuel his imagination and inspire some of his greatest inventions. In addition, many of the world's top writers belonged to groups who shared and critiqued one another's works.

The same is true in sales. Salespeople often achieve much higher levels of success when they team up with other salespeople and share techniques, practice scripts, challenge one another, and hold one another accountable.

My friend and colleague, Terry Wisner, founder of Partnering To Success, LLC, developed his own version of teaming up with a partner, called the Personal Partnering Process. Perhaps you already practice personal partnering and aren't even aware of it, or maybe you call it something else, like the buddy system. If you are a member of a group that reads, exercises, or diets together, for example, you are already involved in a basic form of personal partnering. Members of the group set goals together, set deadlines, and meet to share their progress and support one another. Without some peer pressure, you would ...