Details To Put Your Cherries On Top

Yes yes, the strive to be the best you can be is a well trodden mantra these days. From Sir Clive Woodward‘s rugby driven one-percent improvements, through Sir Dave Brailsford‘s seismic cycling marginal gains to an overall acceptance that champions focus on their process ahead of outcomes.

Here the latest of my ‘sport & selling’ blogs is the current football living manifestation of these.

It heralds from the wonderful success at present of the smallest team to make a sustained impact in the English Premier League.

Bournemouth – nicknamed The Cherries, with stadium capacity a tiny 11,360 – have the youngest manager in the division. Here’s a recent insight into his thinking;

“I would like to think it’s about commitment and being obsessed with details, being obsessed about the small things that make the big things happen.

I am passionate on the training ground about things being perfect. It’s about taking a performance, breaking down every single aspect of it and then working on making each aspect a little better.”

It’s part of what’s taken them from rock bottom of 92 pro clubs four leagues down, to Top Six.

Both pillars are worthy of Sales discussion; ‘being obsessed about the small things’ & ‘breaking down every single aspect’.

On either count, you can probably already isolate areas to which these refer.

I’ll save you from a listicle of full examples. Rather, let’s consider the platform from which this builds.

It is one where knowing your process is essential.

The steps, actions, events, activity, conversations that, when they occur, pretty much mean you will win the business.

When did you last ‘obsess’ about handling a specific objection, cultivating a particular senior exec, the delivery of a Proposal?

When did you last ‘break down’ how you start a bid, the way buying decision-making is understood, a final presentation meeting?

These are brief samples. Many more exist besides. Are you on top of yours?