Monday Night Football - Lessons to be Learned by Sales Leaders

I love football and I love watching it. In fact - watching football probably takes up a significant portion of my free time. If I can't be watching it live, I will be watching it on TV. It doesn't need to be Newcastle United either - and in recent years, that hasn't exactly been an entertaining thing in any case! The re-emergence of Monday Night Football on Sky has been a godsend in the past 4/5 years. Yes- the fact live football is on at the start of the working week after a weekend of live football is a big plus here. But MNF has became synonymous across football fans for additional reasons.

Crucial to the success of Monday Night Football is the amount of time the programme allocates to TV analysis and review of select recorded matches from the weekend. Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher combine their top flight experiences with innovative 'game analysis tools' to provide an interactive and engaging experience for Joe public - eager to get an insight into the professional expertise of the ex-Premier League footballers. Tactical breakdown of player positions, review of set piece consistency, formations of teams whilst on the counter-attack, decision making of individuals. You name it - it gets analysed and broken down by the guys in the studio. Much of this for me, is truly eye opening. Things that you would never normally pick up on when watching the game live, suddenly comes to life and leaves you questioning why such actions were carried out on the pitch. The analysis may be seen as some as slightly 'OTT', however what they unveil is something which football managers across the country are doing on a weekly basis. Something which allows them to review, feedback, and shape their decisions for the next training session or match. It is the fundamental method of team improvement, and the insights and data which allows football managers to make slight or even significant adjustments to hopefully return better results. You are naive to think that even a semi-pro manager's analysis stops at 'we need to defend better'. It may start at that - but the real improvements stem from looking at HOW they defended, what happened in specific moments of the match, and what could have provided a more positive result if in that situation again? Equally if the result of the football match was a 3-0 win with great attacking prowess and a clean sheet, successful managers will be looking at WHAT went so well (so that can be replicated) and what more can be improved upon? Whats even more interesting is when Neville pulls in a recording of a clip from a completely different match to contrast and showcase a better way of doing things- 'Best practice' if you like.

So where am I going with this? Well this analysis of the 'game tape' runs strong parallels with the world of sales interactions. Every day as sales reps we are making cold calls, delivering sales demos, pitching to customers, and sending out emails in the hope of responses. That is essentially our '90 minutes' of a football match. At the end of the 90 minutes, we may have won the game - perhaps booked 4 appointments, closed a deal, or received three positive email responses. We may have drawn - and achieved half of that. Or we may have lost, and all our outbound efforts have returned very little. The question then becomes - WHY did we achieve that result? What made us win the match and book those quality appointments? WHY did my rep send 50 emails and not get one positive response? HOW did one of my reps convert one of their demos to a verbal commitment but my other rep achieved no actionable next steps? Do you ask yourself these questions? Or do you find that you tend to coach and make decisions on metrics rather than actual interactions?

Based on the statistics out there, the truth is, is that most sales managers don't really ask themselves these questions, and tend to coach more on quantity metrics rather than quality. Speaking with a VP Sales in an Enterprise SaaS company recently, their response to the question "how do you assess the quality of interactions your reps are having" was simply - "our most successful reps tend to be the ones who send the most emails and deliver the most demos." This is a common response I get when I pose this question, and I believe is one of the fundamental reasons as to why sales coaching is so broken. Sales leaders have became too focused and pressurised on coaching around KPI's rather than actually trying to up-skill their team.

As a sales rep - if my outbound calls fail to result in booking quality appointments - I don't get any reassurance to the fact I've made 100 dials that day. What I REALLY want is meaningful feedback as to where I'm going wrong on my calls. Am I not asking the right questions? Am I not asking enough questions? Am I waffling too much and not engaging the prospect? Is my value proposition off message and if so - how? These are the actual things I want to know and understand to make my next '90 minutes' more successful.

How as a sales manager do you do this then? Its simple: Invest time 'reviewing the game tape'. Playback your reps call recordings, review their emails, watch their sales demos. Above this - break those interactions down into coachable moments. Pinpoint where on the call the rep is going wrong. Suggest a new approach or question to ask. Probe into why they may have handled the objection the way they did and what they would have done differently next time. Better still - show them a great example of how one of their peers managed the situation in a stronger fashion. Sharing best practice is one of the most powerful things you can do to drive sales improvements in your business.

A couple of weeks back I reviewed the 'game film' of one of my team's recorded sales demos using the Refract platform (our own version of the Sky Sports TV analysis tools!). My colleague had briefed me before I watched it that he wasn't sure where the call had gone wrong. The conversation (the 1st half) had started so positively with the prospect opening up a number of key challenges which we could solve. Unfortunately the 2nd half had resulted in no strong actionable next steps. The football equivalent of taking an early lead, but conceding in injury time to a late equaliser! After watching his demo recording back, I immediately pin pointed two or three key moments in the call where I knew the call had gone off course. He hadn't asked some key questions at key moments, and capitalised on the prospects challenges. They were make or break moments which undoubtedly changed the outcome of the conversation. Sharing this feedback on the game film with my rep subsequently opened his eyes as to where he went wrong and what he could have done differently next time. It was true match analysis which transformed his performance in future games (demos).

I'd be keen to find out - when it comes to reviewing your reps performance, are you a Gary Neville? Or are you content at just looking at the final score?