How would you like to coach a team that wins at the sales game like top-ranked teams win in the NBA, NFL, and NHL?

Why wouldn’t you? Who’s better at producing consistent winning efforts than professional sports teams?

Business?

Education?

Government?

You gotta be kidding!

Professional sports teams excel where business, education, government and science fail because professional sports teams invest in developing extraordinary coaches who develop extraordinary players capable of winning games, lots of games.

And that’s a nugget of truth that ought to excite even the most jaded sales manager . . . don’t you think? If an extraordinary coach in the NFL can develop extraordinary sports players, why couldn’t you or any other extraordinary Sales Coach develop extraordinary Sales Players?

It’s no accident that successful professional teams win off-field before they ever win on-field. No team reaches the NBA playoffs, plays in the Super Bowl, or wins the Stanley Cup simply because it pays big bucks for talented athletes. To make it to the top of its sport, a winning team, like a winning business, has to play well in every facet of its operations or . . . lose.

You know better than anyone that that the sales game is tough these days. In fact, it may well be tougher today than ever before for even the best sales professionals to generate consistent revenues and profits. You and your sales force work your hearts out, day in and day out, struggling against determined competitors to sell your products and services to prospects and customers who demand everything and more: the lowest possible price, immediate delivery, unblemished quality, plus instant, first-rate service.

Talk about tough!

How can you rise above the fray, how can you set yourself and your sales team apart from your competitors, and how can you achieve the consistent success you so richly deserve?

Simple . . . you find new business models, new strategies and new tactics to cope with the unprecedented challenges you face in the sales game today.

Where can you find these new business models, strategies and tactics?

Like we said before . . . look no farther than professional sports teams.

When you compare the way business plays the sales game to the way professional sports teams play their games, you discover some interesting dichotomies.

First and foremost, no matter what it says, business doesn’t really demand the most from sales professionals . . . not really. And, because business isn’t seriously serious about holding individual sales professionals accountable for their failures to perform, the typical sales organization loses nine out of every ten sales it attempts to close.

If you applied this win/loss record to the National Football League, which plays 18 to 20 regular season games a year, the typical NFL team would win 2 or fewer games a season.

Unlike professional sports coaches, sales managers typically stay out of the action on the sales playing field. Sales managers don’t have time to work the sidelines like an NBA, NFL, or NHL coach because they’re too busy behind their desks with sales projections, profit and loss statements, personnel problems, factory politics, and company politics.

If professional sports teams played the same way most sales organizations play the sales game, NFL quarterbacks would run failed play after failed play, quarter after quarter after quarter, with no input from coaches. If professional sports teams operated the same way most sales organizations operate, Major League Baseball pitchers would walk player after player, inning after inning, while managers shuffled papers behind desks in offices far away from the action at the ballpark.

Because management is typically out of touch with the sales game, most sales organizations seem to be perfectly willing to put up with sales managers who consistently run bad plays or no plays at all. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, these so-called sales managers seem to be willing to hang on to field sales people who consistently fail to generate a return on the company’s investment because they consistently fail to achieve performance goals and sales projections.

Business doesn’t lead . . . business follows economic cycles . . . and that’s why business gets sales people-bloated during good times and goes sales people-lean during tough times.

When the economy is strong, when sales are easy to come by, business tends to get greedy and tries to snatch every available dollar by throwing too many sales people after what ultimately turns out to be too few sales opportunities.

And then, when the economy falls into a slow cycle, business panics, decides to put survival ahead of greed, and cuts back.

But then, when the inevitable recovery comes along, business gets caught flat-footed and winds up throwing too few people at too many opportunities and scrambles to catch up with demand, creating a costly cycle that plays havoc with sales, profits, and people’s lives.

Business is scary different from professional sports in one particularly harmful way: When business loses, it tends not to accept responsibility for its own failures. In fact, instead of looking to itself to make necessary changes and improvements to strengthen its ability to sell, business tends to blame outside forces including ad agencies, competitors, the government, even customers, for its problems.

The world sees that when a professional sports team loses a game or a season, it doesn’t waste time playing the blame-game. Professional sports teams take immediate responsibility for their failures because nothing, not politics, not money, not even relationships, changes a professional sports team’s motivation to achieve defined performance. Failure to perform (Win) causes the team to make immediate changes in management, coaches, players, training, or whatever else it takes to turn things around.

Business bounces from loss to win to loss because it is unwilling or unable to look at its problems objectively and invest the resources necessary to consistently train and motivate sales professionals who are capable of and interested in performing at the top of their games.

Professional sports teams, on the other hand, accept responsibility by investing whatever it takes to prepare coaches and players to compete and win against their toughest competitors . . . year in and year out.

So, what does this mean to you?

It means this: If you’re serious about winning at the sales game, you’ll study, adapt, and apply the same strategies and tactics professional sports teams use so you can effectively prepare yourself and your team to win against your toughest competitors.

Sales managers will become Sales Coaches.

Sales people will become Sales Players.

And, sales meetings will become sales practices.

After all, if you can’t coach your sales team to renew and reinvent itself as well as a professional sports team to win more sales, more profitably, more often, against even the toughest competitors, in changing market conditions, your customers and prospects lose, individual Sales Players lose, the team loses, and so do you.

Whether you’re a sales manager looking for a breakthrough to increase sales and profits, or a sales professional needing to increase personal income, or a dealer principal wanting to improve return on your investment, your mastery of the skills and techniques we present in this book will undoubtedly help you fully achieve your goals.

Once you have reviewed, re-learned, and applied everything this book offers, all you have to do is expect to win and you will.

* * * *

The old days when the typical sales manager was an authority figure whose primary responsibility was to manage the time and efforts of sales people are as far gone as black & white television, carburetors, and whitewall tires. Also gone are the wasted days when field sales people were forced to scramble around their territories, struggling to make arbitrary quotas just to keep the boss happy.

Those were baseless quotas that required sales people to make so many cold calls, personal calls, and telephone calls each day . . . all of which had to be documented with a wilting stack of call reports to be turned in every Monday morning to the Sales Manager who desperately needed to make sure sales people were working.

And sales people were working alright . . . writing up call reports every Sunday night to be turned in Monday morning!

Ah, the good old days.

The field sales game, like every other aspect of business-to-business business, has undergone incredible cultural, social, and technological changes in recent years. Cell phones, laptop computers, online literature and specifications, and Email have given the average sales professional the ability to fast-track the sales process like never before.

Because information is so widely available and easy to access these days, prospects and customers have the power to place you and your competitors on a level playing field.

So, companies that insist on hanging on to outmoded, traditional sales methods and marketing approaches do more harm than good to their sales and marketing efforts. Restrictive policies (call minimums, call reports, arbitrary office reporting days and times, etc.) are a complete waste of time because they suck the energy out of working hours and therefore don’t do anything to generate sales or profits.

The more time sales professionals spend with customers and prospects, the more they sell and the more they earn. If a sales person can’t devote the time required to get face-to-face with prospects and customers to develop working relationships, to objectively assess product and service applications, and to put a human imprint on the selling process, sales will go to the competitor who does.

What’s important to today’s buyer is not whether you claim your yellow widget is cheaper, will last longer, or is more popular than the other guy’s orange widget . . . what is important to today’s buyer is the critical answer to a critical question: Can I trust this person to sell me the right product or service for the right application for the right price so I can get my money’s worth?

Buyers want to know they can trust you and your company to make every possible effort to protect their investment by ensuring that the product or service they buy will maximize productivity and thereby provide a fair return on that investment.

When you’re able to create that level of trust with a prospect, you’re guaranteed a sale.

As you work your way through this article and the series to follow, you’ll learn everything there is to know about virtually every significant business strategy and technique – aligning priorities, benchmarking, competitive analyses, coping with culture change, cutting overhead, goal setting, and managing resources effectively . . . necessary to effectively and quickly increase sales and profits . . . whether you’re selling software systems or Caterpillar® Track-Type Loaders.

Either way, this ain’t rocket science.

Your ability to develop and channel your sales team’s collective skills can only be developed if you’re willing to rely on compelling and profound knowledge, skills and understanding; fundamentals which are not only essential to all great human achievement, but are also found in this article series.

* * * *

Let’s say you’re Darrell Waltrip, Troy Aikman, or Bill Walton and you’re at the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl, or the NBA finals and you ask Joe Gibbs, Bill Parcells, or Phil Jackson the following question: “Hey, coach . . . how important is it to prepare for the first practice of the season?”

What do you think he’d say?

No question about it . . . any one of these great coaches would say, “Preparation is everything.”

If preparation is everything (and you know that it is), what, specifically, should you do to prepare for your all-important first practice session where you introduce the Sales Coaching concept?

• Define the primary objective in your first sales practice . . . the questions: Be smart and start at the beginning: Your primary objective is to introduce the Sales Coaching Concept to the sales team. Of course, you’ll be presenting this concept to some folks who admittedly know nothing about it while others on the team may think they already know everything there is to know about Sales Coaching and others will believe they already know everything there is to know. So, what do you think? How will your team react? Will the Sales Coaching Concept be a tough sell? Can you convince the majority of the team that Sales Coaching will increase sales, profits, earnings, and commissions? And, if your team is skeptical, is it because folks just don’t believe in the concept or is it because they don’t understand the rewards and how those rewards apply to the team and the individual. How will you introduce Sales Coaching to your team? Will you simply drop the concept on the group and make a plaintive announcement with the expectation that Sales Coaching will be accepted and implemented immediately? Or, will you start slow, explain the concept, open a dialogue, and patiently work toward consensus? What are your performance expectations . . . for yourself, for individual Sales Players, for the team? How soon do you expect to see an impact on sales and how significant do you expect that impact to be? How much is the company willing to invest – in terms of time, money, and energy – to make sure Sales Coaching works for everyone involved? And, how much (in your opinion) should the company invest in Sales Coaching before it can realistically expect a return on that investment? Last but not least, how do you think this book should impact the every day lives of individual Sales Players and how do you think it should impact the team as a whole?
• The first sales practice . . . the answers: Without pointing fingers, let every Sales Player know precisely what your performance expectations are . . . for yourself, for each individual, and for the entire team as a group. Prepare a list of prioritized expectations, edit the list carefully and thoughtfully, and, even though you should take your list of expectations to the first Practice Session, we suggest you take the time to memorize it. Why? Because you’re likely to get peppered with lots of questions in the first sales practice and you don’t want to get distracted, struggle for answers, get sidetracked, and forget to cover something important.
• Paint an honest but positive picture . . . Nobody likes change, especially sales people. So, let’s face it; you’re likely to get passive, perhaps even aggressive resistance from your Sales Team to the Sales Coaching Concept. So, consider how individual personalities might possibly shape the group’s reaction – positively or negatively – as you decide how best to present Sales Coaching to get broad support. Clearly communicate the potential for growth and success that comes from utilizing the Sales Coaching approach. Talk about the fact that Sales Coaching is more than theory . . . it is a proven, relatively easy-to-use, positive tool each Sales Player can use to consistently increase sales, profits, and income.
• Explain the technical stuff . . . Don’t pull any punches here. Be honest about why you need to make a change. Talk about specific causes for lower-than-acceptable sales, profits, and income. Outline the specific techniques that individual Sales Players – and the team as a whole – can use to increase sales, profits, and income. Though you want to be completely honest, don’t allow this part of your practice session to become about who’s selling and who isn’t. There is nothing to be gained by allowing anyone to slam individual or collective feelings. While the team will respect your honesty, individuals will at the same time appreciate your sensitivity. Nevertheless, we caution you . . . if and when you’re forced to make a choice between honesty and sensitivity, the respect you get from being honest will be far more important to your ability to coach than appreciation will be . . . so tell it like it is.
• Eliminate negatives with positives . . . Let Sales Players know that you have absolutely no interest in criticizing individual mistakes, errors, or shortcomings. Make it clear that your only interest is to equip each Sales Player to sell more, more profitably, more often. Build consensus by actively soliciting viable solutions to any obstacle that may threaten the team’s overall ability to increase sales, profits, and income. Never lose sight of your primary goal: To build a winning sales team.
• Establish new relationships with Sales Players . . . You are now someone you’ve never been before. You are no longer the Sales Manager. You’re not the VP of Sales and Marketing. You’re not the General Manager. You are now the Sales Coach! And, as Sales Coach, your first responsibility is to emphasize the human side of coaching. By that we mean never criticize, put down, or put a Sales Player on the spot – even if you think you’re kidding – in front of anyone else. Make sure that every dialogue develops communications not confrontations. Though you’re still the boss, you will find that a new dimension will have been added to the collective as well as to individual relationships, a leveling of positions that, handled properly, will allow you and Sales Players to work more closely than ever to achieve common goals.

EPILOGUE

There is an old saying in professional football that applies to Sales Coaching: The will to win is meaningless without the will to prepare to win.

As Joe Gibbs, one of the all-time great NFL coaches, once said, “A winning effort begins with preparation. The game may be played on Sunday, but it is won on the practice field during the week; in meeting rooms, where coaches and players prepare the game plan; and in the weight room where the best players do a few extra repetitions.”

How is this any different from your Sales Game? Your Sales Game is played on a prospect’s field whenever a Sales Player gets in front of a prospect to assess the need to buy, to make a presentation, and to ask for an order. How does your Sales Player get on the playing field? How does your Sales Player get in the right position, in the right place, at the right time, in front of a prospect to play the game and score the win?

Practice.

And where do Sales Players practice? They practice in your conference room when they run selling scenarios by their teammates; they practice in your office when they work out specific strategies and tactics with you; and they practice in front prospects and customers in real time.

And, where will you find your best Sales Players?

Like Coach Gibbs said, you’ll find them doing a few extra repetitions . . . not in the weight room, but perhaps in front of a mirror at home as they practice a little harder to become a lot better.

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