The Pregame Speech
It’s football season, that glorious time of the year when people lose their minds, drink too much, and behave in a way that belies the fact that they have any education at all, much less a degree from the prestigious university for which they cheer. I love it like everyone else, but as a systems guy, there’s one part of football that has always confused me: the pregame speech.
All great football coaches are systems fanatics. They have a way of doing offense, defense, special teams, strength and conditioning, and every other aspect of the game, and they relentlessly drill it into the minds of their players. But if that’s the case and systems win the day, why do they need to yell and spit and jump around to fire up their players? Why don’t they save their time and energy and simply say “men, run the system.”
The answer (I can’t believe I’m writing this) is that systems do not win the day. Systems lay the groundwork; systems remove 80% of the variability; systems provide images for minds to reference and actions for muscles to recall; but human beings, emotions, and extra effort win the day. The extra push that causes a fumble; the extra stride that results in a touchdown catch; the grit to hit someone just a little harder than they hit you. That wins the day.
In the game of sales, we call that extra bit of effort proactivity. Proactivity looks like this:
Calling one or two clients per day to learn how they’re doing personally and what’s going on in their business, and then sharing what’s new in your world.
Ending the order call not with a simple “thank you” but with “thank you, did you know we also provide [additional product that could help them]?”
Having the courage to pivot from a warm, fuzzy interaction to a call to action like “I’ll send over the proposal – let’s set a time right now to review it.” Or “What would it take for me to earn the rest of your business?”
The average college football game has 180 plays, and each team has 11 players on the field. That’s 1,980 opportunities per team, per game to give a little extra. If the players were to only give that extra effort 10% of the time, that’s still 198 shots at making the game-winning play. That’s why the pregame speech matters.
If you have five customer-facing employees (most of you have more when you consider salespeople, customer service reps, and account/program managers) and they each do three proactive sales actions per day, that’s 3,900 actions per year. At a conservative 20% success rate, that’s 780 new sales opportunities per year. You’ve probably already calculated the dollar benefit of those 780 opportunities, so it should be clear why you need to build people up and convince them of their power. Because when they believe in themselves and muster the courage to take a step beyond the system, they will be more successful, and you will make more money.
If you’d like to make pro-activity a way of life in your business, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you!