An Uncomfortable Meeting Kickoff
Picture this; We’re in a pivotal meeting with our prospective client. Executives from business and technology are present. The meeting is already 10 minutes late (do corporate meetings ever start on time?) and everyone’s finally settled into their seats.
Our team’s salesman kicks off the presentation. His opening comments go something like this, “Thank you for being here today,” backed up by a lackluster collection of a few boring sound bites about our company that didn’t make a hill of beans difference to the client. Then, to everybody’s surprise, we hear him announce that “I’m going to turn it over to the smart guys I’ve brought with me today.”
H-O-L-Y CRAP! It was all I could think in the moment.
The first time I saw what I’ll call “restaurant host behavior” by a salesperson, it made me wonder why the salesperson was involved at all. Can you imagine what the executives in the room were thinking about these self-deprecating comments?
Well, here’s how it played out.
The sales guy sat down, smiled a lot and didn’t say much until the end of the meeting. In the meantime, the technical guy and I did our best to navigate through the remainder of the meeting without a rudder. At the time, I was new to this software company, and, for that matter, I was hired on as a sales specialist for a specific software in our portfolio. I was pretty far from the most experienced guy in the room.
A Restaurant Host
In case you’re wondering exactly what I mean by “restaurant host behavior,” I thought I should briefly explain..
When you walk into a restaurant, the host or hostess greets you, asks how many people are in your party and then seats you. This is an important process in getting people to the right place, but you’re not going back to the host with any important questions about your experience at the restaurant.
The restaurant host behavior of the sales guy I described above wasn’t a one-hit-wonder situation that I encountered so rarely as to make it remarkable. No, it’s really kind of the opposite; I’ve seen it many times over my career, and conversations with my colleagues have made it apparent that it’s more common than I ever imagined. Maybe this scenario stems from the salesperson’s lack of understanding of what it takes to be successful. Maybe they got a sale in the past with such a limited time and knowledge investment. Either way, they were going about it all wrong, so don’t take this as a selling lesson.
If you want to make sales into a limitless career choice, consider the following sports analogy.
Become the Selling Quarterback
When you deconstruct the attributes of the most consistent and highest-performing salespeople, you’ll find they’re very focused on learning about their prospective client’s business. They also take every opportunity to interact with the client as a chance to move the ball forward. Football, due to the critical role of the quarterback, is the best parallel to the importance of the salesperson working an opportunity. Yes, even bad teams with mediocre quarterbacks win occasionally, but they don’t do it consistently.
Quarterbacks Know Everyone’s Position
The truly great professional quarterbacks don’t win by overwhelming the opposition with their athletic prowess. Look no further than the ageless brilliance of Drew Brees and Tom Brady. They win by knowing exactly how a play must be executed and what every teammate’s role is on his team. They win by studying the competition, their strategy and their tactics. They win by committing to honing their skills alone and with their teammates.
Exceptional preparation and practice are the hallmarks of truly great players.
The success of a company is dependent on its sales staff consistently making plays that lead to closing new opportunities and growing its customer base. Working hard is a given, but to win you must make plays. A winning formula for landing more business might include components like:
- Studying and validating what’s driving the customer’s need for a new technology solution.
- Providing the plan for your team members who’ll join you.
- Learning relevant case studies for your prospective client.
Oh, and more practice.
Like the truly great quarterbacks, consistently top-performing salespeople make the whole process look easy to the outside observer. The reality is that these sales quarterbacks are putting in an immense level of effort behind the scenes outworking the competition and making plays that count.
