What can you learn from a book? Everything and nothing—and anything in between. 

This may sound odd coming from someone who wrote two books, especially two nonfiction books that were clearly directed at helping people learn how to be more effective in their sales and sales management efforts. 

Here’s the deal: Business writing has been popularized—pop business, if you will.

Much like pop culture and pop psychology, pop business is not really about digging deep and getting things done. It is about entertainment; perhaps “infotainment.” 

Is there anything wrong with that? 

Of course not, unless people start to believe that “some single thing” that they read about in a blog post will change everything. Or that reading the book of that charismatic guy with the TED talk will help you instantly revolutionize your sales organization just as soon as you can work through the last page and those last precious drops of wisdom. 

I’m sorry folks. It just doesn't work that way.

How does it work? 

Maybe I don’t know everything there is to know about learning, but let me share my experience as a salesperson back in the early 1990s. 

I was really bad. I mean really, really, really bad. 

With the goal of self-improvement, I read some books, listened to some audio tapes, and went to some lectures. I also asked my peers for help. At first, I took everything I learned and tried to do everything that was taught. But that didn’t work. 

To make a long story short, I realized that when I read a book, heard a tip, or attended a seminar, I should consider it a success if there was just one thing that I could actually use on a daily basis in my sales work. Over time, these single pieces of knowledge came together into a selling framework, and evolved into a selling system. 

Was I done? 

Once I had a framework, I was able to take new information and place it in the context of the selling system even more quickly. I knew just where it went, what it replaced, and what to test it against. 

The pursuit of excellence is not something you can achieve by just reading. You can’t do it by just doing the same thing over and over again either. 

If getting better at sales—or anything—is your goal, recognize that it is an iterative process. 

Do your work, and do it with an open mind and a curious attitude. Every week read something, talk to others, or go to a seminar, or watch a video. It doesn’t matter what. If you are performing your work and feeding your mind, adjusting and testing and trying as you go, then you will improve. 

Sometimes the learning will go quickly; sometimes slowly. But you will improve. 

Just do it! 

In my books and training, I offer learners a framework. If you can develop a framework, then the new things you learn can be more easily put into context. But however you slice it, you have to DO something to learn something. 

You will learn faster if you feed your head as you go. But you can’t just feed your head, you have to DO. Your choice is whether to do the things you need to do to gain experience in a random way or in a methodical, systematic way.