I was watching football Sunday and I got to thinking about the job of a receiver. I decided a receiver has three jobs:

1.        Catch the ball

Nothing positive can happen until the receiver completes the catch.

2.        Try to make additional yardage after the catch

For football fans, this is known as YAK. The more yardage a receiver can run for after he completes the catch, the more productive the play.

3.        Score touchdowns

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the more yards a receiver can run for after the catch, the closer to the end zone they get. The ultimate goal of every receiver on every pass play is to reach the end zone.

This is a perfect example of how someone must reach intermediate goals on their way to achieving their ultimate goal. For a receiver, the ultimate goal is to score a touchdown but Job #1, Goal #1, is to catch the ball. I’m sure you have seen a receiver start to run (Job #2) before he completes Job #1. That usually ends up as an incomplete pass. When he completes the catch and starts to run, a receiver must choose the best path to the end zone. He must depend upon other players on his team to help him reach his goal. If he chooses poorly or his teammates do not perform their jobs properly, he will get tackled before reaching his ultimate goal.

Selling a car, or anything else, is a lot like that. There are a series of small goals you must accomplish prior to reaching the ultimate prize. Here are the three jobs I came up with for a professional sales person:

1.        Build a relationship

Nothing positive can happen until you build a relationship with your customer.

2.        Steps to the sale

Once you have a friendly, trusting relationship with the customer, then you can ‘turn downfield’ and begin to move towards a sale. Like the receiver in football, if you move into this process too quickly, the sale will be incomplete just like the pass. Also like the receiver, you must choose the best path for this particular sale and you must depend on other members of your team to assist you. If you choose poorly or they fail to help you, you will not reach your ultimate goal.

3.        The sale

The further along you get in the sales process, the more closer you get to helping your customer buy and completing the sale. Your goal with every single customer is to make a sale.

 If you read all your keys and run the best route and your teammates do their jobs the way they are drawn up, you can reach that goal. However, you can’t ‘score’ a sale if you try to skip steps in the sales process. And you’re not going to get very far in the sales process if you don’t build a relationship with your customer.

Job #1 is building a relationship. You must achieve that goal before you move on. Once that is accomplished, you can proceed to trying to complete job #2, which is successfully moving the customer through the steps of your sales process. Only then can you go for the touchdown and complete the sale.

In football, the scoring isn’t completed with the touchdown. Usually the kicker comes in and kicks the extra point and the receiver plays no part. Occasionally the coach decides to ‘go for two’ and the receiver may play a role.

There are ‘extra points’ in sales, as well. They’re called referrals. If you’ve done your best job and completed each job in its proper order, referrals should be as automatic as extra point kicks. Just make sure you’ve earned a referral with your performance before you ask.

Oh yea, sales has the equivalent of two point conversions, too. They’re called testimonials. Make sure you go for them as often as possible