Love In 360 - Part 2

Professional basketball is not my favorite sport but there are two players in the NBA I really love to watch. One is point guard Steve Nash who at the time of this writing plays for the Phoenix Suns. The other is Jason Kidd, who just moved from the New Jersey Nets to the Dallas Mavericks (Actually the deal is still in process according to the latest internet news this morning). They can score with the ball to be sure, but their assists are spectacular. Making sure the ball is dished around to the other players at just the right moment so the teammate can score is their specialty. Great sales people, like Steve Nash and Jason Kidd have great “whole court vision”. They thrill to make everyone look good. They take their shots and score their points, but they do so while feeding the whole team.

Even great scorers like Michael Jordan didn't become truly great players that led teams to championship seasons until a coach like Phil Jackson came along and molded Jordan and the team into an unselfish cohesive whole. With all of Jordan's greatness, for my money, the greatest player of all-time may still be Boston Celtic's Center Bill Russell. He and his team won 11 championships in 13 seasons. What was Russell's chief strength? His absolute unswerving focus on team play. He was arguably one of the greatest rebounders, outlet passers, and shot block defenders of all time. His scoring talent was huge, but he chose to use it only when it furthered the team goals.

In baseball there is a special play called the sacrifice bunt. If you follow baseball you already know what I’m taking about. It usually occurs with a runner on 1st base and no outs. The batter bunts the ball, hopefully about 9 feet out in front of home plate and to the right side forcing the first baseman to field the ball. It moves the runner from 1st base to 2nd base into “scoring position”. From second base the runner would then have a good chance of scoring on most singles to the outfield. The batter who sacrifices usually makes an out by design unless the defense mishandles the bunt. He sacrifices his batting average and the chance to be a big hero. You don’t hit home runs while bunting the ball. Great sales people sometimes sacrifice so someone else can be the hero.

In last week’s post I talked about Sales Love Cat, Patrick McCarthy, who went on to become Nordstrom’s all-time sales leader. Early in his career, he was very concerned about other floor salespeople taking his sale in the Men’s Department. It wasn’t until his manager, Patrick Kennedy convinced him to forget about who sold what and just focus on serving the customer that his sales really began to take off.

Moving on to Football, I will conclude by talking about the New England Patriots. Under team owner Robert Kraft and team coach Bill Belichick, they have arguably put together one of the most successful franchises in football history. There are many remarkable components of this team. But if you ask me, the core element is the commitment from top to bottom on team play and sacrifice. They don’t allow selfish players into the Patriot System unless they are completely convinced of the players willingness to change. Amazingly, this sacrifice extends to negotiations about money helping the Patriots to obtain the best players possible under the NFL Salary Cap System. Quarterback Tom Brady actually took a huge salary cut at the earning prime of his career in order help the Patriots get more good players under the cap.

Again, sacrifice for team goals is one mark of a truly great sales professional. Many sales managers, like football team owners and coaches take risks on the greedy, “me-first” Terrell Owens of the world. “I like to hire people who are money motivated” they say. There is nothing wrong with money motivation. But if money and greed is at the center of a sales person’s life, they will tear the team apart every time. This is a counter intuitive lesson that many never master.