Why this page exists
Sellers come to coaching wanting the shortcut. They want me to tell them the answer and fix them in one meeting. That's not how adults learn. That's not how anybody learns.
The Adult Learning Model is my frame for the full journey from "I don't even know I'm broken" to "I do this thing reflexively without thinking about it." It's four stages. Most people give up around stage three. The sellers who finish stage four are the ones who actually change.
It's also the reason my company is called ASP Results — Awareness → Skill → Practice → Results. That's the whole flow. Miss any step and you don't get to the outcome.
If you're a seller working with me — or working on yourself — knowing this model is what lets you not freak out when learning feels terrible. It's supposed to feel terrible in the middle. That's the work.
Industry terms this page covers
| What you might call it | What I call it |
|---|---|
| "Just tell me what to say" | Skipping the model |
| "I've been doing this for 20 years" | Unconscious (in)competence risk |
| Coaching / training | Walking someone through ASP |
| "This is hard — I'm going back to how I used to do it" | The dropout point (stage 3) |
The four stages
Stage 1 — Unconscious Incompetence
You don't know you're broken. You're doing a thing wrong — maybe for years — and you have no awareness that it's wrong. You're not lying to yourself. You're just blind to the problem.
Every seller I've ever coached has started here on some dimension. The seller who's been kicking off every follow-up call with "how's my price looking?" for twelve years doesn't know that's a problem. They just do it. Like breathing. Like driving. It's in their body, not their conscious mind.
The seller is not to blame for being here. You can't blame somebody for not knowing what they don't know. What I can blame them for — later — is what they do once they're made aware.
Stage 2 — Conscious Incompetence
Somebody turns the light on. "Hey — did you know you're opening every call with a price question? And did you know that's training your customer to only ever talk to you about price?"
The seller is now aware they're doing something wrong. They're still doing it — they can't stop just because they noticed. But the autopilot has been interrupted. Every time they pick up the phone now, they notice themselves about to say "how's my price looking?" and they kind of cringe.
This stage hurts. You know you're doing it wrong and you can't immediately do it right. You feel less competent now than you did yesterday — even though you're actually more competent, because awareness is itself a step forward. Most of the pain of learning happens in stage 2.
This is also where most people quit. They hear the feedback, feel terrible, and mentally go "you know what, I was doing fine before. I'm going back to what I know." They retreat to stage 1. Sometimes they convince themselves the coach is wrong. That's the protective instinct kicking in.
The move here: don't quit. Sit in the discomfort. Awareness without retreat is how you get to stage 3.
Stage 3 — Conscious Competence
You start actually doing the new thing right — but with enormous deliberate effort. Every word is engineered. Every move is premeditated. You've got the new script on an index card taped to your monitor. You're rehearsing before every call. You might even be worse at the call in the moment because you're so busy thinking about the mechanics that you lose the human connection.
This is the matrix moment. Remember in The Matrix when Neo starts being able to see the code behind reality? That's stage 3. You can see the moves. You can execute them. But you're still thinking about them every time.
This is where the golf analogy lives:
"Now you have to go — line up my feet, okay, get my butt where it needs to be, get my left arm straight — you actually have to pay attention to your golf swing."
Painful, awkward, deliberate. But you're producing results you didn't used to. You kick off with value-oriented language on 4 out of 10 calls instead of 0. You remember to AWAQ sometimes. Pattern breaks happen occasionally on purpose. You're still clunky, but you're competent. On purpose. With effort.
This is also where sellers often say "this is too hard. I want to take the blue pill and go back to sleep." The effort of staying awake is real. But this is the only path to stage 4.
Stage 4 — Unconscious Competence
The move has moved back into your body. You're not thinking about it anymore. The new reflex has replaced the old one. When a customer says "your price is high," your mouth says "really — how come?" before your conscious brain has even processed the question.
This is mastery. You don't need the index card. You don't need the script. You're not rehearsing. You're just being a different kind of seller, the way you used to just be the old kind.
Stage 4 is the reward. But it only comes after Stage 3. There is no shortcut. You cannot go from awareness to mastery without passing through a lot of conscious, deliberate, uncomfortable practice.
The pattern is not linear and one-way — you can slide back. A long vacation, a stressful week, a new product line, and you can find yourself unconsciously falling back on Stage 1 reflexes. That's normal. Noticing the slide is the cue to go back to Stage 3 deliberately for a while. The work is continuous.
The warning about Stage 1 — you're probably there on something right now
Here's the uncomfortable part. Every seller — including the best ones — is sitting at Stage 1 on something. There's some habit, some reflex, some language pattern you've been running for years that's hurting your results, and you don't know about it. That's the definition of Stage 1.
Which is why you need people who can see you from outside. A coach, a peer, a recorded call you listen back to. You can't audit yourself out of Stage 1 without external input — because the thing you can't see is precisely the thing that's hidden from you.
This is also why I tell sellers: pay attention to moments when a customer reacts in a way you didn't expect. Those are often signals that you did something you didn't know you did. The unexpected reaction is a hint about a blind spot. Lean into it. Don't explain it away.
Why "just tell me the answer" doesn't work
A lot of sellers want me to skip the model. "Steve, I don't care about all this — just tell me exactly what to say on the next call."
I can tell you what to say. I can give you the words right now. But here's what'll happen:
- You'll memorize the words (Stage 1 skipped, Stage 2 awareness exists, Stage 3 attempt)
- You'll try them once or twice, feel awkward, and go back to your old habits
- The words will fade in two weeks and we'll be right back where we started
Because the words are 7% of the thing (see the communication pie). What makes the new move work isn't the words — it's the posture, the tonality, the timing, the belief behind it. Those can only be built through the Awareness → Skill → Practice arc. There is no download-it-to-your-brain option.
When a seller genuinely asks "what should I say," I usually give them the words AND the model, and then say:
"The words are the easy part. The harder part is staying awake for the next three months while you catch yourself not using them and correct it. That's the actual work."
ASP — my company name — what it stands for
- Awareness — turn the light on. (Stage 1 → Stage 2.)
- Skill — learn the new move. (Stage 2 → early Stage 3.)
- Practice — repeat it, in reality, until it's automatic. (Stage 3 → Stage 4.)
- Results — the outcomes that follow when the practice sticks. (The payoff of Stage 4.)
The company is called ASP Results because results only come from the full sequence. Most sales training stops at Awareness and Skill — a consultant shows up, teaches a new model, the seller nods, the consultant leaves, nothing changes. I do my work in the Practice zone. Coaching calls, not seminars. Repetition over months, not a one-day workshop. That's where the actual change happens.
How to use the model on yourself
You don't need a coach for this to be useful. You can apply the model to yourself:
- Stage 1 audit: list three habits you're sure are helping you that might actually be holding you back. If you can't name any, assume you have blind spots (you do) and ask somebody you trust to name them for you.
- Stage 2 discomfort: pick one of those habits and commit to catching yourself doing it. Don't try to fix it yet — just notice. For a week. That's it.
- Stage 3 practice: once you're noticing reliably, start swapping in the new move. Badly, at first. Scripted. Clunky. Every day. Track your reps.
- Stage 4 patience: don't expect mastery in two weeks. 90 days of deliberate Stage 3 practice is a reasonable investment for a single behavior to move into Stage 4.
Work on one behavior at a time. Sellers who try to overhaul five habits simultaneously make zero of them stick. One habit, 90 days, fully installed — then the next.
Where the resistance comes from — and what to say to yourself
If you find yourself resisting the model — "this is all too slow, I just want results faster" — notice that. That's the voice that keeps people at Stage 1. The honest answer is:
"You've been at Stage 1 on this for years. 90 days of focused Stage 3 practice is the fastest possible path to Stage 4. Faster doesn't exist. The shortcut is not skipping Stage 3 — the shortcut is committing fully to it."
Say that to yourself when the resistance shows up. Then do the rep anyway.
Where to go next
- Clark Kent — the posture that makes Stage 3 practice land without embarrassing yourself in front of customers
- Communication Pie — why the words alone aren't enough to install a new behavior
- Strokes — feeding yourself through the pain of Stage 2 and the awkwardness of Stage 3
- Pattern Break — a typical Stage 3 drill target
- Information Pull vs. Push — another typical Stage 3 drill target
Source: drawn from 20 moments across the live-coaching corpus — including the ASP Results origin framing, the golf-swing analogy for Stage 3, the Matrix blue-pill / red-pill metaphor, and the "awareness → skill → practice → results" flow. Voice preserved.