Before you wind down with client drinks, office party drinks, your team drinks and then finish up at a bar for some…drinks, here are the top three things you can do to freshen up your sales behaviour over the holidays.

1.      Practice empathy with people you despise over Christmas Lunch.

Whether you’re at your house or a relative’s house , you will be confronted by people who are not on your wave length. In fact your brother-in law/uncle/dumb cousin drives you up the wall. In addition, they still haven’t returned your golf clubs you lent them in 2005 and they crap on about their jobs as if they’re the Director-General of the UN…and they’re in the roof tiling business.

If you can endure their self indulgent drivel, it will prepare you very well for dealing with Procurement in 2018. Your urge to maim and kill will be diluted through practising understanding and patience so when a Category Manager throws Tender Tantrums at you next year, you’ll handle it with ease.

2.      Presenting at Office Party drinks

It’s become increasingly popular for leaders and others to speak at end of year events, whether it’s to staff, clients or both. Does the expression ‘Inane Platitude’ mean anything to you?

‘Thank you to our wonderful clients, thank you to Saxon, Ebony, Rhys, Jean-Pierre, Thor, Per, Frederic, Jesinta, Gorden (with an e) and ABCDE (pron. Abserdee) for all their great contributions this year and great work in growing our business….we are a wonderful team and all that toxic behaviour everyone endured was just a bad dream (sorry, little bit of truth just spilt off my keyboard).

The good news is, if you’re able to think about your audience and their recognition and goals, it will help you prepare more meaningful client presentations, rather than just throwing sloppy slides at them,

3.      Making friends with weird people on holiday

Your child meets another beautiful child with similar blue braces in the resort swimming pool. Before long, a parent or two appears like a Great White Shark from the deep with ‘Well, these two are having a lot of fun, aren’t they…Hi, I’m Stephanie’ All you want to do is have a quiet swim with your spouse for once, rather than listen to a rave about the online market for hand creams. And now you’re stuck.

However, if you can listen, it will stand you in good stead when faced with a client who appears to go off on a tangent talking about issues that don’t connect to your solutions. It will galvanise your ear drums to the point where you can listen to any client discussion at any level in any company.

Not to mention how knowledgeable you’ll become on key hand cream ingredients like glycerine, safflower oil and aloe vera.

So, now you have three great ways to sharpen your skills, even if you’re in the holiday season.

May you spend lots of your time and hard earned commission on the people who matter most in your life.

Happy Holidays.

Elliot

Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate Sales, Negotiation and Presentation trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi , Australia Post, Samsung, Deloitte and Lend Lease.

He is internationally renowned for ensuring sessions are engaging, interactive and relevant to winning business in competitive markets.

Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife, two negotiators and prefers to swim in the resort pool without having to give free consulting to start ups in the shallow end.