Right now we are in the middle of an amazing NFL playoff season as we get closer to the Super bowl. Yesterday the NFC and AFC Championship games were played with four teams offering a very different style of play. There is no one defining way a team should play football. In fact, if you ask 20 people what makes a great football team and you will get 20 different answers. There is one constant on great teams though, a great Quarterback.
The Quarterback is the leader of the offence and in many games can make the difference between winning and losing. How can one player be so influential when a team is made up of 50+ players? It is the same way a top sales person leads a company to success or failure. These are the 5 defining traits of what it takes to sell at the highest level. Your ability to understand and do the following 5 things will make the difference in your career:
1. Read the field
2. Scramble
3. Execute
4. Take Risks
5. Ownership
I read a lot of ‘sales self-help’ books and articles; and in my opinion there is too much time spent on the actual skill of selling. Understanding the basics of selling is very important; however the basics will not propel you to the top.
Skill alone will not give you the success you are looking for. There have been many ‘skilled’ Quarterbacks that can’t make it past their rookie year and spend years holding a clipboard playing back-up. If you don’t want to be a back-up player in your sales career then keep reading and implement what you read in this article.
Read the Field
It is the sole responsibility of the Quarterback to read the field when they approach the line of scrimmage and make the right adjustments to the plays being called. Depending on how the defense has lined up the Quarterback needs to communicate to his team how they will penetrate the defense and maintain momentum.
In selling you need to continuously be reading the field. During customer visits you will be able to observe your surroundings and look to see how your competition is doing. Perhaps it is small things such as; your buyer is using a pen given to them by your competitor. Pick up these mental clues and adjust your own approach accordingly. That doesn’t mean run out and get your buyer one of your pens; it does mean take note you likely have a skilled competitor playing against you and you will need to align your company with your buyer in similar ways.
Communicate what you learn back to your company. The other players are relying on the Quarterback to call-out what is happening at the line of scrimmage. The success of the other players is directly related to the Quarterback’s ability to communicate. As a sales person you need to communicate back to your managers what is happening on your line of scrimmage and how can you use your company’s resources to penetrate your customer. The rest of your team ie: marketing, supply chain, trade marketing, finance, demand planning, etc... Are relying on your communication to inform them on how they can be best utilized.
Scramble
Every great Quarterback has the ability to scramble. Scrambling occurs when the first option of the play has not worked and the defense is breaking through the offensive line to get to the Quarterback. The Quarterback’s only option in this situation is to extend the play by scrambling away from the defense to find another option.
The very best sales strategy can be thought up in your boardroom at your office however you never really know how your customer will react. Maybe your strategy is sound, but a supply chain issue has delayed shipment of goods and put your sale in jeopardy. When you feel like things are going wrong in a big way you will need to scramble. It is your job to work out another solution at a moment’s notice.
When a Quarterback is scrambling during a live play, he can’t stop and say, “This is not part of my job; you should be blocking me while I think about what to do.” If he did stop, even for a second, the Quarterback would get crushed by the defensive lineman. The ability to scramble and think in real time to find solutions is the difference between winners and losers.
Execute
Being able to execute your sales plan or strategy is a must for top level sellers. When a Quarterback starts a difficult drive from deep in their end you don’t see them try to reach their goal in one play. What is more sensible is to build executional momentum. Executional momentum is built by stringing together several smaller successes to gain the valuable momentum to help you reach your end goal. A Quarterback will use the plays he thinks will work most often to try and build momentum.
A top sales person should build executional momentum when trying to achieve any goal. Starting with smaller victories and building them together will help you reach your highest end goal. You will often see lesser skilled teams that are able to build strong momentum achieve much more than a ‘highly skilled’ team that over look’s the effectiveness of executional momentum.
Think of ways you can create momentum behind your goals. Is gaining internal alignment around your top customer’s strategy going to help you build momentum? Maybe gaining the support of key field sales people will help you? Maybe soliciting customer feedback behind an important idea or strategy will start your executional momentum. The key takeaway is not what you do specifically to build executional momentum; it is that you take actions to start to build momentum behind you.
Take Risks
I am sure we can all name at least one Quarterback (or other famous athlete) that took a risk that paid off. The hail-marry for a touchdown after the game had ended. The game winning homerun, the game winning shot, the big putt holed to win the tournament.
No one ever remembers the risks that weren’t taken. So taking a risk and failing, has the very same outcome as not taking a risk in the first place.
Playing a conservative game is not the way top Quarterbacks win games and it is not the way top sales people play either.
If you are not currently a risk-taker then learn from those around you that are risk-takers. Study how they approach taking a risk. I think you will find a risk-taker’s perception of taking a risk is very different to your own perception. You see risk-takers think that with proper skill and determination taking a risk is not ‘taking a risk’ it is more of a logical outcome. They have trained and prepared for success, so taking a risk that can lead to success is not strange, it is a logical thing to do given the proper preparation.
Ownership
All the top Super Bowl winning Quarterback’s in recent memory take full ownership of the victory, just as they would have taken full ownership of a loss. Being able to take ownership of an outcome is one of the most important aspects of winning.
Top sales people put themselves on-the-line and expect to win. They tell others they will win. They help their fellow sales people better themselves, so they too can win. They live winning. If you are afraid of a negative outcome or hide in the back of sales meetings not wanting to contribute, then you need to change your attitude.
Ownership is simple you take the good with the bad. You take the praise right alongside the criticism.
The best way to build your sense of ownership is to take on small projects and focus on accountability. The Apprentice a reality T.V show with Donald Trump puts contestants through a series of small projects to identify who out of the crowd will take ownership and who will duck responsibility. The project manager is always the owner of the group’s performance. I suggest you volunteer to project manage small tasks your team needs completed. Take full ownership and communicate results back to your team in a timely efficient manner. Once you have successfully completed multiple projects you will find yourself building momentum behind your sense of ownership and soon you will be ready for even bigger challenges.
These 5 traits of Quarterbacks are the very same needed to sell at the top level. You have already got yourself into the right mindset by seeking out and reading this article. Now continue to challenge yourself and keep learning new information to fuel your continued success.
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