Lower League Breakout Mindset

Daniel Farke is the newly promoted manager of a team trying to buck a tough trend. Namely avoiding immediate return to the division below via the EPL trapdoor.

The portents aren't great. He attempted similar before. Twice. And got the sack. Yet this year, there's a chance he might make it.

Giving the pursuit a go summed up by one broadsheet admirer as; "trying, trying and trying again to succeed, or if not, at least to fail better."

I was intrigued by a subsequent trio of insights into what underpins his thinking.

The first, a well worn trope of the corporate seller;

"stagnation is regression".

Yep, to stand still is to go backwards. The trick is, to know when you're dangerously close to (or worse, at) such point. Not as simple as it sounds.

Perhaps particularly timely as I blog when global ISVs as they were once called experience a pronounced sell-off in their shares at plummeting values. AI, you see, is about to render their ol' software obsolete.

Many an Enterprise Sales team is likely faced with similar perceived headwinds. How aerodynamic are we?

I also liked the saying from his German homeland of which he's fond;

Willst du gelten, mach dich selten ―
If you want to be valued, make yourself scarce

One thing Economics gets right. Mapping this onto solution selling isn't always straightforward. Yet when we laser on a specific problem we uniquely resolve, and steadfastly ignore any and all others adjacent to various levels - echoes of Blue Ocean Strategy for fans of that framing - is when our scarcity gets truly valued.

Finally, this belter;

“I’ve always been a firm believer in methodology. I believe that good, methodical work pays off more than just scraping together three points week after week. In the long run, substance and methodology prevail.”

Yes you can win a game here, snatch a draw there, and keep close to the tally required. But, and it is a huge one, it'll never be repeatable, sustainable or even growable.

Luck is not a strategy.

This football manager may not be in place come the start of next season, sure. Yet losing one battle does not mean the war gets lost. Systems > Goals. Without the former, the latter will never reach what you need.