How Teams Win Championships
Andy Jaffke
Senior Sales Leader at Teradata | Figuring out the value of AI & GenAI | Passionate Coach and Mentor
Backstory
Four years back, I had a spark of an idea.
Why not share the keys to my own success journey with a brand-new sales team and territory I was asked to lead at Teradata, motivated by a major restructuring effort?
In January 2019, after managing Banking and Government accounts in Spain, I was tasked to lead a combined team for France, BENELUX, and Iberia.
FY2019 kicked off in February after our global Sales Kick Off in Vancouver, Canada, leaving little time to organize and set up for success.
Questions flooded my mind:
Fast forward to FY2020: Our team, "Pulsar," was crowned "EMEA Commercial Sales Team of the Year 2019" at the next Sales Kick-Off in Vancouver. We surpassed our quota, and one team member was honored as the "Best Commercial Account Executive globally."
This success story begged to be shared. Initially, I considered writing a book solely on our sales journey, but then I had a better idea: Why not make it a team effort, just like our sales journey?
And that's exactly what happened.
After pitching the "How Teams Win Championships in Sales" book project on LinkedIn in February 2020, five seasoned business leaders - Pablo Escobar de la Oliva , Mattia Bruzzi , Eduardo "Eddy" Baez , James Craig and John Di Marzio - answered the call.
In March 2020, amidst the COVID19 pandemic, we embarked on a mission to co-author a groundbreaking book, dedicated to adding value to the Global Sales Community by its very members.
Sales professionals, take note:
The book's unique concept ensures that all proceeds from its sales go entirely to charitable organizations. The authors have nothing to gain personally from book sales.
Crafted over 15 months and backed by interviews with esteemed business and academic leaders, the result embodies true teamwork.
The book: Teams Win Championships
Our book, "Teams Win Championships - How to Create, Lead and Contribute to High Performance Sales Teams" isn't your average read. With over 300 pages of actionable insights, it's divided into three parts:
What sets it apart?
Outdated sales practices need an overhaul. A shift to a more team-centric approach recognizes the contributions of all involved in winning deals, not just those closing them.
Our Vision and Mission
"Teams Win Championships" aims to offer a practical framework for the sales world, promoting teamwork and collective success. We invite readers to challenge norms and embrace new ideas for achieving sales excellence.
By fostering strong bonds within sales teams, we aim to support each other through challenges and celebrate successes together.
领英推荐
I invite you to grab a copy, lead your sales team to victory, and join us on this journey of learning and growth.
P.S. Here's a sneak peek of the foreword, penned by my dear friend, sales coaching superstar, and "Lover of Sales" Mike Weinberg . We're immensely grateful for his support, including the book launch!
Foreword by Mike Weinberg
There is this captivating (false) romantic narrative about successful entrepreneurs and business leaders, athletes in individual sports, and even sales professionals:?
“She did it on her own.”?
“He was a maverick and accomplished this all by himself.”?
While these success stories are certainly appealing, the problem is that, at best, they are incomplete and, more accurately, they are a myth!
We don’t win in business or sales “all by ourselves”, and neither does the professional golfer or tennis player win major championships completely on their own. Did these champion athletes not have parents who invested in their pursuits and sacrificed time and money to support their development? Were there not coaches along the way? Physical trainers? Nutritionists? Equipment suppliers? Practice partners? Mentors? Sports psychologists? What about ball boys and ball girls, caddies, drivers, pilots?
In my own sales career and as an author/speaker/coach, my success is very much a product of the support I received and the teams with whom I was surrounded. On the Acknowledgment pages in my books, there are paragraphs upon paragraphs dedicated to thanking teammates for their enormous contributions because the undeniable truth is: “Teams Win Championships.”?
How perfectly fitting it is that this insightful, impactful book was written by a team – a wonderfully diverse group of individuals from different countries and continents with varying backgrounds, roles, and areas of expertise who, for a worthy cause, became a championship-caliber book-writing team!
Teams Win Championships is so valuable because it confronts us with this harsh reality: we need others to succeed, and while individual talent is a wonderful blessing, it is often not enough to produce a champion. And I’m confident that every reader (or listener) can quickly rattle off a litany of sports teams that have shelled out (wasted) millions of dollars on superstar players but never achieved the ultimate prize – winning the championship.
The inspiration for this book you are now reading (or listening to) came from my good friend, sales executive Andy Jaffke, an über-talented, German-born resident of Spain whose tremendous success with leading sales teams to victory prompted him to recruit this talented and passionate group of co-authors…
…to deliver exactly on the promises set out in the subtitle of this book: How to Create, Lead, and Contribute to High-Performance Sales Teams!
As much as I love “simplifying” sales … today’s world has become more and more complex, and the reality is that complex sales require teams. An individual rarely, if ever, wins a big, detailed, complex deal by him/herself. This truth dictates that creating and maintaining successful teams is not optional if we want to win big in business – it’s a necessity!
This book not only drives home the importance of teams but it will also help you to become both a better leader and a better teammate. Open your mind (and heart) to the process, the interviews, the stories, and the lessons as the authors intentionally tackle the BIG topics.
As critical as you may already be of team culture, prepare to be pushed even harder on the reality that culture permeates every aspect of a team. Be ready to convert the pleasant and overused term servant leader into much more than a mere platitude. And if you dare to think that you communicate clearly and often enough with your teammates, then buckle up; the authors are about to confront you with an undeniable truth: Communication is the lifeblood of a successful team. It’s the “oil” that lubricates, reduces friction, cools tensions, engages hearts, and provides longevity.
The reader (listener) will very much appreciate the authors’ humility and honesty. Instead of bragging and chest-beating, they simply tell their stories, share their successes and struggles, and allow their interview subjects to shine. I particularly appreciated their refusal to pretend that they have all the answers when it comes to leading championship teams. The authors’ refreshing admission that a topic as enormously important as sales team compensation remains a massive unresolved challenge. There appears to be universal agreement that no one has truly quite figured out how to fairly and appropriately compensate cast members (engineers, consultants, etc.) who support the sales function.
Teams are an integral part of selling and business. All of us long to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and we can all agree that there is nothing quite like the elation of celebrating a hard-won championship with your teammates. If you’re ready to become a better leader, a more valuable teammate, and truly understand why and how the best (sales) teams win championships, grab a pad and a highlighter and dig in!
Mike Weinberg
Author of New Sales. Simplified. and Sales Management. Simplified.
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Good luck!
Absolutely, teamwork is the bedrock of success! Aristotle once hinted that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This rings true in sales and leadership as well. ????