INTRODUCTION

Two stories from the Olympics, two unexpectedly different outcomes . . .

In 1980 the USA men’s hockey team won gold at the Olympic Games in Lake Placid, NY. All amateurs, they were known as Team USA. In the semifinals, they overcame a heavily favored Soviet Union team, which had won all but one of the prior seven Olympic competitions and boasted a roster of several world-class players. The USA team took the lead in the final period and held it to win this legendary contest. Team USA then defeated Finland in the finals to secure the gold medal. The US squad included 20 players—9 had played together at the University of Minnesota for their Olympic coach, Herb Brooks, and 4 were teammates at Boston University. (Coffey, 2005)

In contrast, let’s look at the star-studded USA men’s basketball team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Coached by Larry Brown, an NBA coach and future Hall of Famer, the team’s roster included NBA MVPs Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan, and future superstars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwyane Wade. This was not the same team that had qualified the USA squad in 2003 for the Olympics (the Dream Team); in fact, only three members of that team remained. In the 2004 contest, Team USA lost in their first-round game. By 19 points. To Puerto Rico. Though they managed to advance to the medal round and beat Spain, which had been undefeated, they just barely made it onto the platform for a bronze model.

How does one group of highly paid superstars underperform, while a different group of amateur athletes from different schools outperform? And how can their experiences help you develop a cohesive, winning selling team?

Well, there are, of course, significant differences between selling and sports teams—all of which have nothing to do with height, vertical leap, stick-handling ability, or skating skills!

Imagine a group from your organization in its last stages of preparation for a final sales pitch. The lead salesperson is feeling confident about the team he or she is bringing; has thought through the opening comments; believes strongly in the excellence of the presentation, research, and materials; and will provide several new insights and offer provocative questions to challenge the buying committee’s thinking about the project.

In this scenario, the team’s CEO will also be attending and has reviewed the lead salesperson’s briefings and key talking points. The CEO feels confident about conveying the organization’s commitment to the client’s goals.

Also participating are two subject matter experts (SMEs), who have carved out time, beyond their research and client work, to review the salesperson’s briefings and the presentation materials. Based on their deep experience and knowledge, the SMEs are certain about the strength of their capabilities and their ability to communicate them to the client.

They all meet in the lobby of the client’s headquarters; in some cases, they are meeting for the first time and introduce themselves. Then they confidently walk together into the client’s boardroom.

Fast-forward to their departure from the meeting: the confident smiles are gone. What happened?

They weren’t in sync to sell.

Once the client committee and selling team took their seats, here’s what occurred:

   As the lead salesperson began to speak, so did the CEO. The salesperson yielded and the CEO spoke unexpectedly for several minutes on the strength of the organization.

   The introductions took a long time, mostly due to one of the SMEs spending several minutes describing the organization’s current research focus. Already, the “team” was more than 10 minutes into its 60-minute time slot.

   The other SME, when it came time to discuss his area, nervously presented his material page-by-page—with little client engagement.

   Throughout the meeting, there was very little actual conversation with the client—even during the Q&A portion of the pitch.

   When the procurement officer did ask a question about the team’s pricing proposal, the team looked at each other for a few moments before the salesperson responded. This was followed by the CEO, who provided a slightly different answer.

   At the 60-minute mark, as one of the SMEs was wrapping up her section of the presentation, two of the committee members got up from the conference table to get some lunch, which had been brought into the conference room, and the chair of the client committee thanked the team for coming.

What happened? It’s what didn’t happen before the meeting that really matters.

Here were representatives from an organization with the capabilities and commitment to win the business. They had pulled together professionals with credibility and experience, and who put in the time to prepare for the pitch. Yet, even with strong individual players, the group lost.

Sound familiar?

That, in a nutshell, is what this book is about—to help you avoid this scenario and instead, learn a proven process and build a cohesive team that wins. Perhaps just as importantly, you will learn how to analyze what went wrong when you don’t win, so you don’t make the same errors twice.

This book is not about the important work that groups do when they develop strategic account plans, and it’s not about teamwork for its own sake. It is about how solid, in-sync teamwork impacts the execution of account plans and performance before, during, and after client meetings.

The book and its proven approach draws from my 30 years of experience in team selling—as a successful salesperson, account manager, leader, consultant, and sales coach.

This book leverages academic research. Though very little research has been done on selling teams, quite a lot has been conducted on the characteristics of high-performing teams and managing pressure. To illustrate the key aspects that unify winning teams, I’ve included both solutions and true stories from my own experiences and a wide variety of business and nonbusiness examples, such as sports, the arts, the military, community organizations, and more. These are all aspects you can begin to develop and implement on the selling teams you lead, coach, or contribute to.

As you read, you may find yourself thinking a range of different things like: “Hey we do that!” or “I should probably do that more.” or “Uh, we never do that.” The point is never to overwhelm you. Rather, I want to be certain that, whatever your experience and skill level today, there is something significant for you to gain by reading and using this book.

Here is how the book is organized:

Part I is about understanding and navigating today’s external environment.

Before you can sell effectively with a team, it’s important to understand how buyer and seller behaviors have changed since the “great recession.” Recognizing the external environment as it is today will allow you to adapt and sell effectively in more complex, multiparty interactions. In this part, you will learn what “selling squads” are and what they look like across industries. Because teams that sell together typically convene for a high-stakes moment, we will also look at how pressure affects your team’s work, and I will provide key insights for ensuring your team doesn’t sabotage its own potential when it counts most.

The final topic in this first section is about qualifying opportunities. This subject will be familiar to experienced salespeople, yet it is important for salespeople at all experience levels to gain an appreciation for why qualifying opportunities grows in importance when working with others; and how, by collaborating, you can elevate your ability to select and pursue the right opportunities.

Part II covers how to build effective selling squads.

While Part I focuses on helping you recognize today’s complex selling environment and how tough it is to sell exceedingly well with a team, Part II unpacks the proven process for choosing the right members for your group, and for helping them become a cohesive, in-sync team during the preparation for a pivotal client meeting. You will learn the process for planning your team’s work efficiently and to avoid information gaps, mistakes, and last-minute heroics. You will learn how to structure an effective practice session that prepares your team to perform with excellence. And you will learn how to execute a unified meeting plan that is aligned with the interests of client stakeholders and conveys the collective strength of your team. I will also share what needs to happen after the client meeting. You’ll learn to conduct an effective debrief that ensures your team is on track to deliver on client expectations set during the meeting and enables both team members and the group to grow professionally.

The process I’ve laid out supports the most extreme scenarios—high-stakes meetings or presentations with multiple players on each side of the table. You can apply this same approach, in a scaled-down form, to any meeting in which two or more people come together to sell to a new client or retain an existing one.

Part III covers the actions you can take today to create increased collaboration in your organization.

This part addresses the key contributors to selling squads—including senior executives and subject matter experts—and how they can maximize their positive impact on a sales meeting. I will also discuss the inevitable time-crunch: when you have minimal time to prepare, there are shortcut steps your team can take to increase your chances of winning rather than winging it. I also cover the complexity of price negotiations when others are involved, and how to stay cohesive, simple, and focused. You will learn about “selling energy” —how to get it and keep it, and how it impacts your team’s (and your own) performance. Finally, I will cover the barriers that get in the way of teamwork and simple, proven steps to overcome them.

Each chapter throughout the book is structured to include common mistakes, proven research, real-life examples, time-tested solutions, and best practices that will help you lead and contribute to more effective selling squads.

A few words on how to get the most out of the time you invest in this book. Have you heard the joke about the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That visual may not work for you on many levels. As the analogy relates to reading this book, however, there is a lot here to consume. Take it one section at a time. To retain and apply what you learn along the way, you will find at the end of each chapter a work page to capture key points you’d like to remember; and questions to focus your preparation for your highest potential opportunities today. You will also find a worksheet at the end of the book to distill what you have learned into a clear, specific action plan that is ready for you to implement to sharpen your overall approach and results.

Whether you are a senior leader, sales manager, salesperson, client executive, subject matter expert, or any other contributor to selling squads, you will find road-tested tips, techniques, and tools that you can begin using immediately to drive uncommonly excellent teamwork, successful customer meetings, and winning outcomes.

Ready to dive in? Let’s go!