The Carpenter's Tool Belt

The Carpenter’s Tool Belt

We've all seen the construction guys on building sites (and even some of our neighbors--us included—on some weekends) with their big belts on with their tools of the trade. 

Those tool belts hold the items that they come to use on a daily basis. It doesn't contain all of their tools, just the ones that they tend to use more frequently than others. 

The other tools are, perhaps, sitting in a box in their truck or somewhere else on the site. Those are the tools that they use less often so they don’t put them in their belt daily.

A few years ago I was scheduled for some more sales training. I have probably been to about 15 sales training courses and the last thing I wanted to do was take 3 days out of my schedule to attend yet another ‘mandatory’ training course. 

I went, and something happened. 

It was nothing earth shattering but I relearned something again…I wasn't using all of my tools!

As a sales and business development professional I had a tool box that I had built up over the years. I had tools in there that had I came to use most frequently based on experience and personal preference. 

Those tools were the ones I kept in my tool belt. The exercises we did in those three days made me reach back into my tool box and look at things I had not used in a long time, and had likely forgotten were even there. 

Sure, some were tools designed for use in specific circumstances but most were tools that I had just quit using for one reason or another.

At the end of those three days I went from begrudgingly going to a ‘mandatory’ sales training event to happily realizing that I had learned something from a course that was not really any different than most of the other Sales 101 courses I had taken. 

I realized that I, like many of us, went to work each day and over time kept using the same tools. 

A good friend asks me at the end of each time we get together what was the best thing I got out of our meeting. 

The best thing I got out of this course was that I have more tools than I carry in my tool belt and that I need to keep evaluating which ones I put in my belt every day.

What’s in your tool belt?

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