Anatomy of a One-day ‘rookie’ Sales Player Camp
It’s almost noon on a sunny, warm Monday in August and after four hours in the first rookie practice after the NFL draft, a bunch of rookies come off the football field at a community college on the coast of southern California, some sweating, some tired, some smiling, some not.
Jeff Corey, a 22-year old first round draft choice after a stunning four year run as a record-setting running back on an ivy league NCAA division I championship team, puts an arm around a new buddy, Tyron Jones, and tells him he’s got a good game, but he’s got to give it more. “The coaches want to see you ferocious,” Corey says. “They want to know you’ll give ‘em two hundred percent every time that ball is snapped. Give ‘em anything less and they’ll cut you loose without a second thought.”
Jones, 23, is a defensive tackle from a Division II state college in a small southern state. He’s a sixth round draft choice who needed five years to get a degree, and he doesn’t appear to hear Corey. Truth is, he doesn’t want to hear anything critical; he’s heard nothing but criticisms all his life from friends and family who’ve told him he’ll never have what it takes to play with the big boys. So, he hides behind trash talking, making fun of the one pass out of fifty plus Corey dropped that morning.
“Whatever, man,” Corey finally says as he gives up on Jones with a shrug. Corey’s too good to worry about what a guy like Jones has to say.
They head for the lunch room beneath east side bleachers where Corey and thirty-three new friends sit down to huge metal platters covered by mounds of mashed potatoes, piles of mixed vegetables, inch thick porterhouses and lettuce and tomato salads.
Corey finishes his meal in no time and downs two 16 ounce cups of diet Coke as he jokes with Jones and two other rookies seated at one of three dozen round red formica tables surrounded by fixed vinyl padded stools.
Corey’s in a great mood. He’s had a fantastic morning on the field with lots of ‘hoo-yas’ and ‘attaboys’ from the coaching staff pacing the sidelines as he strutted his stuff.
He’s on his game and he loves showing off the talent and skills that made him a first round pick. His sense of humor and ebullient attitude rubs off on the other rookies and everybody’s beginning feeling pretty good about their prospects to make the team.
An hour later, when stomachs are settled and bathrooms are empty, two of the team’s starting quarterbacks join 20 rookies on the field for a team 1 versus team 2 scrimmage.
With less than a minute to play in the fourth quarter, Corey has scored three touchdowns for team 1 but team 2 is winning, 24-28.
But all is not lost. Team 1 has the ball, the quarterback takes the hike, scrambles back about five yards, turns, and throws a fifty-some yard bullet to Corey.
Jeff runs like the wind, looks over his right shoulder, lines himself up with the ball, deftly sidesteps one defender, then another, and leaps to catch the ball.
Tyron Jones comes out of nowhere, all energy and enthusiasm, giving it his all, flying through football players right and left, pushes himself into the air, grabs Corey around the waist, and pulls him down.
Corey’s fingertips barely graze the ball so he stretches and arches his body at the last moment, trying with all his might to make the catch but the football gets away and he twists in the air and drops, along with Tyron, with a sickening thud to the grass, and the two rookies roll away.
The field goes silent as a bunch of football players and a whole lot of coaches on the sidelines stop dead in their tracks, wondering what’s next.
Corey limps off the field, shaking his head, completely dumbfounded, not believing what just happened.
A bunch of overweight coaches on the sidelines who couldn’t run fifty yards much less throw a ball fifty yards, watch their star rookie pass by and not one of those big mouthed fat men knows what to say.
It’s like when Frank Sinatra performed his final concert, forgot the words to “My Way”, and the audience went silent because no one knew what to say.
Then, without a word to anyone, Corey goes to the locker room, changes to his street clothes, and leaves the campus.
For Tyron Jones, the first day’s efforts have been both positive and negative. He’s a talented, strong, motivated player who’s plagued by an anti-authority attitude that creeps in to his psychic at the oddest times . . . like when he knows the coaches want to see more effort, he finds himself fighting strange forces within just to keep from holding back . . . it’s completely nutty, he knows, but that’s how he is.
That attitude got in the way through high school and college, but that morning, when a star player told him that he was about to throw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he decided to drop the attitude and do what he needed to do to finally win.
As Jeff Corey turned on to the interstate and drove off to an uncertain future, Tyron Jones found himself surrounded by a bunch of smiling, glad-handing, back-slapping, coaches and rookies.
Thanks to Jeff Corey, the star player who couldn’t figure out for himself how to make the team, Tyron did.
Professional football teams run rookie camps for one simple, very good reason. They want to find out who’s got what it takes to win and who doesn’t.
And, as you undoubtedly know, the real winners in the sales game are the players who hang in, who take criticism for what it is, and transform weaknesses into strengths.
Just like real pros, just like Tyron Jones.
So, when you hire new sales professionals, put them through your own version of a rookie camp and find out who’s got what it takes and who doesn’t . . . before its too late.
Just as the NFL uses Rookie player camps to select the strongest players to build the strongest teams, a forward thinking sales organization should create a one-day camp to not only select the Sales Players with the talents and potential to win more sales, more profitably, more often.
Gather rookies and experienced Sales Players together in one room, close the door, tell everyone to shut off cell phones, make sure telephone operators hold all calls, and let everyone know you expect 100% focus on everything they’ll be doing that day.
In your opening remarks, talk about the products and services your company sells. Let rookies know your reasons for carrying each product and providing each service. Tell rookies about the theory behind the value you deliver to customers. Follow-up with specific examples of customers who’ve been able to build their businesses by virtue of using your products and services.
Use PowerPoint to introduce your selling process (Prospecting, Qualifying, Quoting, Decision to Buy, and Repeat Sales) and diagram how, when, and why players will work through each and every step of the process. Allow plenty of time to explain each step and open up this part of your presentation for questions and answers.
To encourage a more meaningful dialogue, divide your players into two groups of experienced sales professionals and rookies. Let them talk in relative privacy for about half an hour about the ins and outs of your selling process. Ask the experienced sales pros to explain your company’s ethics, work environment, mission statement, and earning potential.
Move on to role-playing demonstrations between yourself and experienced sales professionals to demonstrate precisely how the selling process should proceed under a variety of selling situations; easy, tough, and in-between.
The next step is to bring rookies into role-playing situations with experienced pros and then you can move on to rookie-on-rookie role-playing.
Make the point with everyone – experienced sales pro and rookie alike – that without proper execution even the best planned selling process won’t deliver sales. Stress the fact that each sales player needs to know how to read the competition so they can stay ahead of each competitive move.
Last but not least, ask for honest feedback about everything that has happened so far. Send this message, especially to rookies: No team functions unless every player is in the game. Make sure that every person in the room makes a contribution to the conversation.
In the last couple of hours of the day, take each participant aside and ask for an evaluation of their own performance, your performance, and the performance of other participants. Don’t let anyone ‘bad-mouth’ anyone else . . . you’re just looking for objective performance analyses here.
So go get ‘em.
Copyright © 2008 by l.t. Dravis. All rights reserved.
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at LTDAssociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.
About the Author
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