by Steve Jensen
7 min read
Growing up, Dick Fosbury was a mediocre athlete that wanted to be a champion. He was cut from his school football team. Then he was cut from the basketball team. He turned to track and field.
He wasn’t fast enough for the running events and he decided to become a high jumper. At the time, the early 1960s, high jumpers were clearing the bar using methods like the Scissors Jump, the Western Roll, and the Straddle technique.
All of these were “feet first” techniques to help the athlete clear the bar.
In his sophomore year of high school, Dick failed to clear jumps of 5 feet, the qualifying height for his State competition using the popular Straddle technique.
So Dick started to experiment and changed the mechanics of how he cleared the bar.
Dick put everything into his training and while using the “modern” techniques of his day, he was never particularly good. Using the upright scissors technique, his personal best was 5’4”. At this time, the world record was 7’3” and Dick was never considered a prospect for anything better than “average.”
As Dick remained committed to becoming a champion, he knew he’d have to do something different. He attempted a variation of the scissors technique, lifting his hips up and pulling his shoulders back. That day he cleared 5’10. But he looked strange.
Because his modified technique looked so strange, coaches worried that he was breaking a rule. However, the high jump rules stated only that a jumper must only jump off one foot at takeoff and there was no rule governing how a competitor crossed the bar…so long as she or he got over it.
A jumping revolution was born.
As Dick adapted this new technique, he began leaping over the bar by pushing himself back first. It looked like a flop rather than a leap. Haters emerged almost immediately. Newspapers called him the “World’s Laziest High Jumper” and named his technique the “Fosbury Flop.”
As a sophomore in college, he shattered the school record, clearing 6’10”. His coaches allowed him to develop this technique because the results were too good to overlook.
In 1968, Dick made the final spot on the US Olympic High Jump team. He was ranked 61st in the world and was not considered a medal threat by anyone. But in this competition, Dick’s efforts paid off and not only did he win the gold medal, but he set both an Olympic and American Record at 7’4.25”.
Today, every competitive High Jumper uses the Fosbury Flop. Dick’s records were soon eclipsed by better athletes using his revolutionary technique.
But Dick is forever etched in High Jump history.
He didn’t change the sport of high jumping. The same rules applied. Jump off one foot and clear the bar.
What Dick changed were the mechanics of high jumping—the way you executed a High Jump successfully.
The term “Modern Sales” is thrown around a lot by sales leaders, sales trainers, and providers of sales solutions.
But in the last 3 weeks, “Modern Sales” has changed. And it has changed a lot.
In the last 3 weeks, I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time on the phone with some of the most successful Sales Leaders around the world. Leaders of some of the most successful sales teams. Leaders with Financial Institutions, Technology Firms, Manufacturing, and Industrial Organizations, and Pharmaceutical/Medical Device Corporations.
Every story has been different. I’ve learned a couple of lessons.
The first is that we are all navigating the same storm, but we are all in different boats. The way this storm impacts each organization is different and the challenges and opportunities are unique to each company. There’s a lot we can do with this to understand how to lead with empathy and connect with our customers and prospects.
But there’s even more we can do with this as sales leaders to connect with the reps on our sales team. They are all in different boats as well. This is why my next point is so important for each sales leader reading this.
The second thing I’ve learned is that the Sales Process has NOT changed. Your prospects and customers still need to have the same set of experiences in order to make an informed decision.
They need to identify their problem, understand why the problem is worth solving, become comfortable that their selected solution provider is the best fit, and navigate their internal processes to gain consensus, secure budget, and make a decision.
Those things haven’t changed.
What HAS changed is the mechanics associated with intentionally engineering these experiences.
As salespeople and sales leaders, we still need to sell. We still are responsible for finding ways to keep the revenue engine running. We still are chasing “Closed Won” and we are still chasing “The Number.”
But how we do this will, by necessity, change.
The way we access companies must change.
The way we use technology must change.
The way we dollarize value must change.
The way we follow up must change.
The “Cycle Time” must change.
The usage situations we discuss must change.
And the way leaders interact with salespeople must also change.
As a sales leader, it is critical that you identify where the mechanics related to creating your set of experiences comprising your sales process are changing and where they are staying the same.
This is NOT a party you want to be late to. Sales leaders that figure this out first will create an almost immediate competitive advantage.
Here’s a simple approach that will get you started:
List the stages of your sales process and more importantly, the goal of each stage.
Identify the “proof” or verification that can come from a customer, validating that the goal of the stage was actually completed.
List the critical activities a salesperson uses to fuel this “verifier” and prompt action from the customer.
Evaluate the way these activities have been completed in the past and how they must be completed in the current environment.
If they truly can be completed the same way, put them on the “Same” list. If they must change (i.e. a video call vs. a face-to-face call), put them on the “New” list.
Build a training plan for the “New” mechanics. Include a practice and coaching plan for each of these.
Reinforce all key activities in your 1:1 coaching with each rep. If the current approach still works, make sure your team knows. If you need to create a sales version of the Fosbury Flop…do it. But do it now.
New sales mechanics will require new leadership mechanics. Most of the companies I’ve spoken with have been emphasizing how they equip and modify how the sales team sells.
And this is a good thing.
But most I’ve spoken with haven’t emphasized how the leadership motion must be modified as well.
If you get the sales leadership motion right, the sales results will be significantly better and faster.
The companies I’m speaking with are either in a “Crisis Survival” or “Crisis Management” phase or they are now starting to work on their “Crisis Recovery” plan.
I’m proud to be working closely with several of these companies and even participating on task forces that are making sure they don’t lose track of the fact that HOW you sell will forever be more important than WHAT you sell.
Never stop working on the mechanics. What you do (activities), how you do it (skills and tools) will always drive win rates and cycle times. Those will fluctuate from rep to rep, company to company, and be impacted by other factors like we are experiencing now.
But don’t be Valentin Gavrilov, the Russian ranked #1 in the world in the 1968 Olympics that lost to an unheard-of competitor, Dick Fosbury and his “Flop” everyone thought was so ridiculous.
Very quickly, this new approach became the gold standard.
As you work through your crisis management and crisis recovery plans for your teams, understand that new mechanics are now required to provide the experiences that fuel your revenue engine.
Be first to Flop
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If you would like to discuss this topic more in-depth, hit me up. I am here to help and I am happy to share the things I have learned in talking with sales leaders from around the world in the past few weeks. We share a common challenge and I am excited to work toward common solutions. Send me an email anytime at [email protected]
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Steve Jensen is VP of Marketing at Xvoyant