The Golf to Sales Analogy: When You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

I didn’t take up golf until I was 50 because as someone who played baseball, I thought it wouldn’t be much of a challenge to hit a ball that was just sitting there on a tee and a half day of that seemed like a royal waste of a day.  What I didn’t know at the time was that hitting a golf ball flush would be the only sport I played that could give me the same rush I had when squaring up a baseball. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

At the time, my golf friends probably couldn’t stand it when, I would brag that I was overshooting the greens.  While I thought that was the equivalent of hitting a home run, they knew I had no idea where or how far the ball was going or which club to use.  I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I was so bad those first two years that I counted lost balls instead of strokes.  I spent more time in the woods looking for balls than I did on the course.  A four-putt was a win.  While I could sometimes do one but not the other, a ball that I hit straight and in the air was cause for celebration. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Speaking of not knowing a swing from putt, let’s talk sales.

Last week I role-played a discovery call with a new (to me) rep and demonstrated how to uncover compelling reasons to buy.  I played the sales part and my first question was why he (playing the prospect) wanted to meet with me.  He said he was interested in the software and I asked why. The rep stopped me and asked what I was doing.  I said let’s keep going and then we’ll talk about it.

When we finished the role-play I asked the rep why he stopped me when I asked the second question.  He said that up until that moment, the answer to my first of around thirty questions would have caused him to send a proposal.  He had been in sales for around six years and all this time he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

This happens all the time with salespeople who think they’re great, successful, impressive, capable, or a winner, if they simply:

1. Book enough demos; Demos are fine if they are later in the sales process to show how you can solve the problem that you actually learned about.
2. Send enough proposals; See demos!  Fine if they are late in the sales process to formalize your recommendations.
3. Get the company on bid lists; I can’t believe I still hear this.  Getting on a bid list or an approved vendor list may be a required step but it never was, is not now, and will never be a win.
4. Close a big deal; That’s great, but it can’t be a one-off, it must be a consistent, repeatable outcome.
5. Hit quota; This is a minimally expected outcome.  It’s called doing their job!

They don’t know what they don’t know.

Pivot to sales management.

Last week I coached a new (to me) sales manager and helped with how to coach an underperforming salesperson. I asked whether the problem was lack of accountability or lack of ability and he wasn’t sure.  I asked if the salesperson was making the effort, making the calls, meeting the daily requirements for the required activity.  He wasn’t sure.  I asked what the required activity was.  He said there wasn’t any and that the only requirement was the quota and it didn’t matter how salespeople reached the quota.  I asked how many salespeople he had that were under-performing and he said all of them.  As nicely as I could, I said, you don’t have any activity or pipeline requirements, and you don’t know if your salespeople have the skills, and none of them are hitting quota.  I gently asked, “What are you doing all day?”  He said selling.  He didn’t know what he didn’t know.

The enemy of being great in sales or sales management is when they don’t know what they don’t know.

The sales rep in the example reports to the sales manager in the second example, so that brings us up one more level in the sales organization to the VP Sales that the sales manager reports to.

Until last month, he was a sales manager for this company and in that role, he didn’t know what he didn’t know.  But he did have some capable salespeople who made him look good by consistently exceeding quota each quarter, so he got promoted.  He was lucky but the company thought he was a rock-star and credited him for the achievements of his capable salespeople. In a senior sales leadership role, he still doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, but now the situation is dire.  Not only does he not know what he needs to know as a Sales VP, he doesn’t know what his sales managers need to know to perform in their roles and you guessed it – he doesn’t know what his salespeople need to know to become performers.

Fortunately, the new CEO suspected there was an issue and asked us to uncover the problem, fix it, create a proper sales culture, provide the required sales tools and train up the entire sales organization. Little did he know, the issues actually stemmed from hiring flaws as they had historically emphasized engineers over salespeople.  That led to an entire sales organization that were lacking in skills, understanding, sales process, strategy, methodology, tools, expectations, accountability, coaching, pipeline management and more.

Fortunately, the new CEO knew what he didn’t know.  Feel free to reach out if you’re a CEO who knows what you don’t know.

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