Rewire Your Employees For Improved Sales Performance
Do you sometimes wish that you could rewire your front-line representatives to up-sell and cross-sell while they provide great service that builds customer loyalty and generates repeat business? Would you like to apply the coaching secrets of a true Master to increase your sales results?
You may not be familiar with the name Yuen Wo Ping, but if you’ve seen any of The Matrix movies or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon then you are certainly familiar with his work. He is the martial arts expert, choreographer, and filmmaker who masterminded the beautifully acrobatic fight sequences of those films. Actress Uma Thurman talked with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air about how Yuen Wo Ping rewired her brain during the filming of Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2. Here’s a brief excerpt from their conversation in which she provides us with tips for rewiring our representatives.
| Terry Gross: | Before you started making the movie could you imagine yourself starring as this assassin in a martial arts film being able to kill with knives and swords and martial arts? |
| Uma Thurman: | No! When I went out there in my yellow jump suit and raised my sword I still had doubts. But by the end – I have to tell you – I felt like a pro. By the end it was actually quite phenomenal what Master Yuen Wo Ping did to my brain and my body. It was . . . an amazing rewiring that took place there. |
| Terry Gross: | This is the martial arts expert that trained you? |
| Uma Thurman: | Yes. He’s a director and a choreographer himself. . . . We call him The Master . . . |
| Terry Gross: | You said that The Master rewired your brain, not just your body. How did he change your brain? |
| Uma Thurman: | He turned me into a coordinated person for the first time in my life. I participated, but you know, it’s difficult to learn. We forget when we kind of get into our adult lives. And we avoid as much stress as we can, we learn how to avoid places where we struggle. And when you have to go back and learn something from the very beginning, it’s humbling. Because you have to go into that space where you struggle, where you can’t do. Where you’re hurting, and you’re humiliated, and you want to stop. And you don’t. And you have to continue. . . . And then you break through and you learn a little bit more. And you learn a little bit more. And in this case of Kill Bill, every time I could do one thing they gave me another thing to do. So it was just a constant process of struggle and learning and really it just changes your brain. . . . |
| Terry Gross: | What was his approach to teaching you? Was he encouraging or was he more the authoritarian? |
| Uma Thurman: | They were very encouraging to me, because they could see I worked hard. You’re trying to do something and you can’t do it, you’re swinging a stick around and it hits you in the face, hits you in the head. You swing it around, do it again, you have tears running down your face practically and you keep trying. So they were very nice to me, because they could see that I really didn’t give up . . . |
| Terry Gross: | Would you just list some of the things your character is subjected to, and some of the blows she takes and gives in Kill Bill: 1 and 2, particularly 1? |
| Uma Thurman: | Well, there’s the battle where I kill the 88 . . . . and I do everything from jump off of balconies and land on tables, which – I’m afraid of heights. I had wires on, so finally I’d jump off the balcony, land on the table. Finally I get that right, and then the camera’s on, got to do it again. Finally I’d do it again, get it right again, and they go “Oh good, she can do that. Let’s have three guys charge at her and she can now add seven sword moves to that.” Which, by the way, is pretty scary . . . |
Coaching representatives to transition from service to sales may not be as exciting as jumping off a balcony, landing on a table, and doing battle with 88 swordsmen. But the challenges are similar! Listening to Uma Thurman describe her coaching experience with The Master, we find startling parallels to the best practices of master call center coaches. Any time you coach, you’re asking someone to change and to learn. So if you need to rewire your employees’ brains, be sure to follow these coaching tips!
Coaching Tips
- Remember that learning something new can be a terrifying and humbling experience.
- Provide encouragement – especially when you can see that someone is working hard at learning.
- Provide time to practice “offline” until someone gets it right. Then give them an opportunity to do it “live.”
- Build success one step at a time through small wins.