Category Archives: Learning

Mar 13 2012
Humor, Learning

Drummers Wanted

The “Rock Band” video game can actually teach you to drum. It gives you a real-world challenge and you have to apply real drumming techniques to succeed.  With repetition, your skills increase and you learn to play the drums.

Conversely,  “Rock Band” cannot teach you how to play guitar.  It gives you watered down challenges and you can get away with a simplified technique.  It’s superficial.

In the world of Pre-Sales, winning and losing- competing – helps you develop an in-depth understanding of business over time.  Simulations, dry runs, online classes and certifications… lead nowhere.  Or worse, to a career in marketing.

Tagged ,
Feb 28 2012
Creativity, Leadership, Learning, Tools

A Voracious Appetite for Learning

One of the fundamental requirements* of the Pre-Sales role is learning.

There are always new products, new industries, new technologies and new approaches.  There’s so much learning to be done that sometimes it’s hard to find time for doing.  But then again, you can get so caught up in the doing, we don’t make time for learning.

Try to learn, think, and create in the morning when your mind is fresh.  Do it before you check your distractions: email, calls, and Twitter. Use your brain in the morning and save the afternoon for the tasks at hand.

Learning isn’t something that happens to you.  You happen to it.  Happen to it in the style that works best for you.  Do you read?  Do you need to see something?  Hear someone explain? Do diagrams make the most sense to you?  Are you driven by examples? Do you have to be physically active, taking notes and interacting with the materials?

Books, blogs, videos, podcasts, forums, presentations, documentation, sample data, sandboxes, and mentors can be found, and found at the speed of an internet search.

*Requirement is such a harsh term. Learning is one of the fundamental joys of the Pre-Sales role.

Tagged ,
Newer posts →