Categories: Sales Leadership | Podcasts | Sales Kickoff
Scot Loeffler knows a thing or two about leadership. He knows about leading a change initiative, getting the most out of high performers, and what it takes to be elite. Scot has worked with some of the most recognizable names in college and pro football as a quarterbacks coach or coordinator. In 2018, he became Head Coach at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) and began the task of turning their football program around.
Recently, Coach Loeffler sat down with John Kaplan and John McMahon on the Revenue Builders Podcast to share his experiences and insights on leadership. In a candid discussion, Scot and the hosts break down the strategies he leveraged to engineer a new era of success for BGSU football and how the same tenets apply for leaders of any high-performance team.
The Dynamics of Leadership Changes
Good leaders harvest from proven models for success. Keep what works. Loeffler’s experiences as a quarterback and coach at Michigan provided the blueprint of what team culture should look like. Business leaders draw on past successes all the time by following the playbooks they learned from previous employers and mentors.
A qualification framework is one example of a blueprint used by sales organizations to drive success. For decades, MEDDICC (or MEDDPICC) has been the gold standard for qualification in B2B tech sales. While some of the language has been adjusted over time, and technology allows today’s teams to integrate the method into their CRM, the core of MEDDICC remains the same. Organizations using MEDDICC benefit from shorter sales cycles, increased average deal sizes, and improved forecasting accuracy. Using proven methodologies and a tested playbook can drive impact in your qualification motion.
For disruptive change, Loeffler’s observations ring true for any leader. Whether the next change in your organization is new leadership or a new initiative, you can count on change being met with at least some resistance.
One of the reasons Force Management’s Command of the Message® methodology has shown lasting power is its function for capturing an organization’s tribal knowledge in ways that transform sales organizations. Command of the Message does this by extracting organizational intelligence from across departments, and arranging the information into a framework the whole company can leverage. As Coach Loeffler states, some people aren’t going to come along for the ride. That’s true whether it’s a football team or a go-to-market organization. Capturing, retaining, and organizing this knowledge is a crucial ingredient for helping companies advance to the next level.
Characteristics of Elite Performers
Here, Coach Loeffler identifies the personality traits that translate into world-class quarterback play. Who are the quarterbacks in your organization? What are the intangible qualities that translate to achievement for these roles?
The best leaders know that you are only as good as your talent. A great talent development strategy begins by identifying and codifying the behaviors that drive your core business objectives. These behaviors apply to more than just sales reps: BDRs, SEs, Marketing and Customer Success roles are more likely to flourish when they fit a success profile.
Your GTM team’s ideal list of characteristics is probably slightly different from how Coach Loeffler evaluates athletes. Work with your managers and hiring teams to identify these critical predictors of success and develop a cadence for identifying and hiring individuals who hold the potential to become all-stars.
Preparation Habits: Commitment & Fundamentals
It’s no secret that the highest performers across industries reach that top tier through their relentless dedication to preparation. Raw talent is part of it, but Hall of Fame athletes got there through commitment to practicing the fundamentals. Just like Brady turning off the lights, it’s about putting in the time.
Football coaches and revenue team leaders can’t force their players to be more prepared than the competition. But they can use the success profile mentioned above to ensure they choose team members who are most likely to prepare in an elite way.
Leaders can also provide the structure and tools that enable a steadfast approach to preparation and practice. Give your teams learning and reinforcement experiences that burn the fundamentals into long-term memory, and drive staff development with strong manager coaching on the behaviors that will lead to successful execution.
Make a Strong Game Plan for Next Season
Coach Loeffler used pattern recognition to help instill a winning culture at BGSU. For him, that process started with hand-selecting the coaches and players that matched his vision and plan for development, and then aligning the team around common goals.
For most B2B sales organizations, the sales kickoff is the annual rallying point for go-to-market teams. SKOs are about sharing the vision, aligning the teams, and setting the course for the future. As your organization looks forward, help your revenue teams by ensuring your next SKO provides the playbook for big wins and team success. Take advantage of this free resource and download our latest eBook: 5 Must-Do’s for Your SKO: The Leader’s Guide to Planning an Impactful Sales Kickoff.
