What Can B2B GTM Teams Learn From ‘AIR’?

Last night I watched the film ‘Air’, and what a fantastic film it was! I’ve never been a huge basketball fan, I would play a little when I was younger and have always wanted to watch a game live, but other than that I knew very little about the sport; other than Michael Jordan (partly because we shared a name but also because It’s kind of hard not to know of him).

The film cleverly mashes together the behind-the-scenes debauchery of Nike’s deal to sign Michael Jordan and observant commentary about a revolutionary reform in sports history. While Nike at the time dominated the running market, the basketball division was dwindling and overall they were playing second fiddle to Adidas?(~64% share in the sneaker market in America and represented the most elite-level athletes in the business) and Converse, whose roster was packed with “All-Star” players (see what I did there). Therefore, it definitely feels like an underdog story.

There are a few key themes stuck out for me, that correlate with the world of of B2B GTM: ?

Changing the Process - Revolutionary Reform

Nike and Sonny Vaccaro completely changed how the industry operated. Previously the brand was all powerful, they would pay a fee to the player and then have complete control over the players branding and likeness’s. Additionally, the only way to do business was by going through the agent, who in this case - David Falk - was a nasty piece of work to say the least.?Quoting that he "wasn’t in business to make friends… one day I will sell my company for a lot of money, I’ll be eating alone, but I’ll have a lot of money”

The business and agent wanted to remain in control, and were willing to kick up a hell of a fuss, when this was threatened (we see a very heated exchange between Vaccaro and MJ’s agent, David Falk).?

Later in the film Michael’s mother makes a demand that the Jordan family take a share of gross sales generated by the Jordan line of Sportswear. After all, he was the one that would make the business and the agent rich.

Within the world of B2B, we too often see sales org’s dismissing the buyer's cycle, preferring to force the buyer (who essentially fund the business) to adhere to their sales process. The pendulum of power has shifted, the buyer is in control, they complete between "57%" - "90%" of their buying cycle before reaching out to a vendor (Gartner & Forrester, respectively). More over, “72% of buyers would prefer a rep-free experience” (Gartner). We need to ensure that we are accommodating our buyers, truly understanding where they are in their cycle and then providing valuable resources and insights at every stage; asynchronously enabling our buyer to more effectively buy.

The difference between the old way and the new way is reflected in the film through:

Nike embracing the new way and generating $162M from Air Jordan in the first year, with?sales today from the Jordans are roughly $4 billion annually. Created an entire brand, inspired millions and give generously to support the less fortunate.

Compared to the old way: The agent David Falk, who sold his company for $100m and was seen that evening dining alone.?

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Trusted Advisor Status - Human Approach to Business?

Vaccaro went to North Carolina and to the Jordan's house. He sat down with Deloris (Michael's mother), who called all the shots for Michael. He persuaded her by foreshadowing what Converse and Adidas executives would tell the Jordan family in their meetings to pitch themselves as his sponsor. At those companies, Jordan would be “one of the greats,” but Vaccaro was offered to make Jordan the best one at Nike, and instead of the player serving the company, it would be the other way around.

Later in the film, when the meetings would eventually happen, Vaccaro was proved right. Deloris was convinced to get Michael into a meeting with Nike, which he had originally refused.?

He earns her trusted by making hypothesis on how thing would play out with the other business, he was only able to do this because of his knowledge, understanding and insight of the industry. It was because of this he won the right to a meeting.

In the meeting, we see couple of key things happen:

Personalisation

Primarily, the shoe. The shoe was personalised for Michael, sporting the Chicago Bulls colours. Something that broke the NBA’s guidelines and would lad to a $5,000 fine per game that Jordan would wear them, a fine that Nike would cover. But additionally, we hear Sunny tell Michael that a Shoe is just a shoe, until someone steps into it. Similar Tech is just tech, features and and functionality are just that until a business sees and extracts value.

Connection

We see Howard white join the meeting and connect with Jordan’s on a human level, at no point does he talk business or even basketball. We then see Phil Knight (Nike CEO) join and almost derail the meeting as he comes across too formal and let his ego get?in the way, then pushing to show a generic Marketing video to try and wow the Jordan family. This derailment was saved when Sunny connected and spoke solely to MJ, laying out his belief and the path to Value that Jordan was going to have.

Nike won the business because they were able to detach their pride and truly centre around the client.

Consolidating Around Highest Impact Activities

Vaccaro was stuck with a small budget, constantly being refused when telling his higher ups he needed more to achieve what was expected, being forced to do more with less... Sound familiar?

He had to sign 3/4 players with $250,000, meaning they would have to sign players that were lower down the draft pick, players that weren’t going to set the world alight. We witness a meeting in which the execs were reviewing who to sign, the meeting was eerily quiet. Some execs would throw a name out, with no justification other than the fact that they were low risk and therefore their head wouldn’t be on the chopping block if the player wasn’t successful.

Yet sunny, had an instinctive feeling that something about one player, Michael Jordan, he was willing to put it all on the line because of this belief.

Businesses are acutely aware of the challenges they are facing yet the majority are too scared to do anything other than the status Quo. "It worked back then, why wouldn’t it work now?" "Let’s just do more of it and it will somehow come good".?

If cold calling, cold emailing or whatever approach/channel it may be doesn’t work for you, why do it?

... To achieve the almost mythical omni-channel outreach approach?

We only have a certain number of hours in the day, we must focus on the things that are going to reap the most reward and at times will have to put our neck on the line to prove it's impacts.

Why was Vaccaro willing to bet his career on signing Michael Jordan?

Vaccaro was an oddball at Nike. He didn’t have many fancy degrees or wasn’t very charming to be a slick executive. All he had was insight and gut feeling. He was a visionary, even if his ideas and methods weren’t traditional.?

He was tasked with the herculean task of making Nike’s basketball division the best in the biz. Without his involvement, it was likely that Nike would have been late to the party and missed out on the NBA revolution ushered by Jordan’s introduction.

Not only did Vaccaro recognize that the NBA would be a money minter in the future, but he also saw how Jordan could change the game. He saw greatness in the 18-year-old Jordan like very few people could profess to do. In hindsight, it all looks relatively easy to do.

By the end of the film we see Sonny revisit a 7/11 store and speak to a store clerk, who had previously announced the Jordan was too small to make it in the NBA. Sonny buys a magazine that MJ is on the front page of, the store clerk has quite a different view this time, stating “we all knew he would be great.”

If we believe in something and can justify it's value, w are doing ourself a disservice by not chasing it. There will be doubters and not all things we believe in will have see success, but we must create an environment in which our people can constantly test, be relentlessly resource and consistently optimise the approach.

If you're yet to see the film, I would highly recommend that you watch it!