Emmitt Smith: A Hall-Of-Fame Model for Every Salesperson and Business Leader

As a fanatical fan of the National Football League, I watched the HOF (Hall-Of-Fame) inductions for 2010’ last weekend. Interesting enough, Emmitt Smith’s speech (pun not intended) really caught my attention. For starters, he memorized the entire dialogue, all twenty minutes… impressive. What was more moving – what seized my attention – was when he shared with the audience how he went about doing his job; reaching for stars and working towards being the best in the world. Emmitt has goals.

Mr. Smith enlightened the 10,000 people in the audience (as well as millions of viewers on television) that as a youngster, dating all the way back to his high school days, goals were the driver of his success. He explained “there was a difference from having a dream and merely a vision,” furthermore, that specific steps needed to be put into place to accomplish and sustain that vision. Emmitt explained “it is only a dream until you write it down; then it becomes a goal.” Make no mistake, his goals were gigantic and quoting Jim Collins, they were certainly BHAGS (big hairy audacious goals).

I then started to ask myself: Why do so many people in business (especially salespeople and business owners) decline to write down their goals? As we all know, the game of sales (and business) is not a race, it’s a marathon. As Emmitt Smith shared, “you need consistency” – it is a vital piece of the success game plan. Sure, Mr. Smith was very talented and he played on some of the greatest football teams in league history. But at the end of the day, it is goal planning that conditioned and drove him to greatness. Emmitt’s commitment to goals and need to plan guided him to the HOF as one of the best in the world at his craft.

What drives you to get up each and every day and be the best you can be at your profession? What motivates you to be courageous and push for more in a field (sales) where we face rejection 95% of the time? The answer is goals – both personal and professional. As I explain to my clients when conducting a sales training seminar, sales training class or professional sales coaching session, if you don’t have written goals the tasks in front of you can be daunting and it is a challenge to expect and receive real change in performance. Sales training is central. Having sales leadership to reinforce our growth is also essential. But as Mr. Smith stated, “being consistent” is even more critical; goals fuel our desires and help us hit targets.

Emmitt Smith was not the biggest running back in the league and he certainly was not the fastest. That did not stop him; Emmitt wanted to be great, so he wrote down his goals and committed himself to executing a rather lofty game-plan. As I write this article, Mr. Smith is now in the National Football League Hall-of-fame, one of the mammoth goals he wrote down as teenager.

OK, enough about Emmitt Smith, let’s talk about you.

What are your big goals?

Robert P. Polonsky is the National Sales Trainer & Founder of Sales1Boston

Great day with the South Shore Chamber of Commerce

On Thursday, we did a full day training (Prospect Management System) with their management and sales team; what a wonderful group. You couldn’t ask for a more professionally driven organization. John and Peter were also gracious enough to take us to lunch, which I had the chance to spend time with their officers (all great guys and gals).

I would highly recommend any business in Massachusetts - operating in and around the South Shore –  to consider becoming a member of the South Shore Chamber. They have so much to offer (for less than a $1 day, literally). Whether you are interested in pure networking, critical for small business tools or making political connections, there is so much to be gained.

Not to mention, it is always a match when you get to associate with “good people”.

Thanks again to John & Peter for bringing Sales1Boston in and we look forward to creating many success stories together in the coming months and years.

A Jim Collins must read

I just finished reading Jim Collin’s latest book (How the Might fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In). Whether you’re a business owner – or a professional salesperson, this is a must read; albeit so are all of his books.

As Jim state’s:

How the Mighty Fall presents the well-founded hope that leaders can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course – in part by understanding the five step-wise stages of decline uncovered in the four year research project behind the book.

Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. Anyone can fall, and most eventually do. But decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

FYI – if you are on the road a lot you can purchase it at Amazon on CD.

A must read for serious business leaders!