EPISODE 554: Applying Pro Basketball Refereeing Skills to Your Sales Process with David Posner

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[EDITOR’S NOTE: This podcast was sponsored by the Institute for Excellence in Sales, and featured an interview with David Posner, VP, Business Development at ShiftMed Staffing & HomeCare.com and referee for the BIG3 basketball league.]

David was featured on the podcast in 2018. Listen to that show here.

Find David on LinkedIn.

DAVID’S TIP: “Practice your presentation skills. As a referee, I work on my skills all day. Same thing in business. When you go into a presentation, can’t just be like, “Hey, so happy to see everybody. Let’s talk about sales today.” You’ve got to be professional, deeper voice, even for female, deeper voice, straightforward. I think presentation skills across all is probably the biggest takeaway.”

THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE

Fred Diamond: David, I interviewed you back in 2018 and we’re doing today’s show with a different angle. We’ll talk for a second or two about what you’re up to as a sales leader, but you’re also a professional basketball referee. I love to see when someone has a unique skill and they’re really at the top of their game for something else. David, give us a little bit of an update on what you’re doing from a sales perspective, and then I’m going to geek out on you as a referee. We’re going to talk about the lessons you’ve learned as a basketball referee that have helped you become a better sales leader.

David Posner: Yeah, and I think that episode was somewhere in like the 80s, like 83, 86. If you start looking, look around that area. But yeah, that was a while ago, and I’ve had some nice sales promotions. Still with the same company, but actually switched sides of the company. I’ve moved up to a VP of sales with ShiftMed. ShiftMed provides nursing.

Right now there’s a huge nursing shortage out there, and so my job is to work with the hospitals, facilities, assisted livings, providing nurses for their buildings so they can get the staff that they need so they can help everybody else out. I’ve actually got a new promotion, I’m travelling, I’m head of all the expos. I’m going to Michigan and Minnesota coming up for some national trade shows.

Fred Diamond: I want to ask you a question. Again, homecare.com, and the new company that you just talked about. We interviewed you before March 2020. A lot has happened over the last couple of years, specifically as it relates to health and home health, for that matter. We talked about the change that companies have gone through because of this. Most of the companies, David Posner, are technology companies or hospitality or professional services. Some are in entertainment that have obviously been disrupted. Everybody’s been disrupted. Your industry has completely been disrupted. If you don’t mind, tell us a little bit about how your sales approach model has changed since the events of March of 2020.

David Posner: No industry has been hit harder than healthcare, absolutely. I think you can probably walk into the food stores and CVSs of the world and not have to wear a mask. But if you walk into a hospital or assisted living, you’ll definitely still be wearing a mask. The COVID has stayed with health care for unfortunately a long time and it’s changed our business.

I can’t walk into an assisted living and just start roaming the halls like I could before. I can’t go into a hospital and just bring in lunch, do a lunch and learn presentation. Everything got switched to Zoom, just like everybody else, and just being able to change. In that sense, it’s been very similar to other industries using Zoom, using different ways, cold calling a lot more than visits. Where most industries are probably back doing cold calls, knocking on doors, I’m still making those calls and actually utilizing trade shows, which have just started to come back like in August. I’m excited about that opportunity. That’s been the biggest change within healthcare.

Fred Diamond: How about from the demand side for what you do and for that matter, the supply side of what you do? How has that been specifically affected by the pandemic and how have you responded?

David Posner: We work with nurses. Nurses providing care on the homecare side, one on one for families and on the ShiftMed side for facilities staffing wise. That’s been hit immensely in the sense of everyone thinks that you get into healthcare because you want to help people. Well, because of the shortage, all of these nurses are getting so burned out and so we’re seeing such a shortage as far as nurses. A lot of the hospitals, rehabs, assisted livings are at like 60%, 70%, maybe 80% filled. Their numbers have completely downed. Government regulations have changed as far as reimbursement and all that stuff has been impacted. Right now, just trying to figure out where people are going. If you do go to the hospital, you get COVID, being able to find places that have the staff available to be able to take you on.

The nursing shortage, that’s on the tough side. On the positive side, those that are getting into nursing, there are so many opportunities and travel nurses are now making close to $2,000 a week because of the need. The good part is all these people that have been helping, the nurses and the CNAs, and GNAs and LPNs, they’re now making a lot more money because the demand is so great. We’re finally able to pay these nurses what they deserve. Even though there’s a shortage, at least they’re getting paid what they need.

Fred Diamond: That’s great. Congratulations on the promotion that you just mentioned and congratulations on the business continuing to grow. It’s interesting, David, I’ve interviewed over 550 people for the Sales Game Changers podcast, and you were one of the first 100 interviews that we did. I would say 50% of the first 100 I did, the people who were sales VPs are no longer doing what they were doing.

Some have obviously gone to other companies, some have left the industry, some have shifted towards maybe being a consultant versus VPs of sales, so congratulations for you on the journey. Let’s shift the conversation to again, your other vocation, your advocation, being a basketball referee. I want to get to the heart. You wrote a really cool article on LinkedIn on the three things that you’ve learned as a basketball referee that have helped you become a VP of sales.

For people who listen frequently to the Sales Game Changers podcast, we’ve had over a million interactions with the show. When I ask somebody like you and I like you, you’re a personal friend of mine, but when someone does something like this, I know I’m going to geek out at some point. I appreciate your perseverance with that, and let’s get started. What’s the first thing that you’ve discovered by being a basketball referee that has helped you become a better VP of sales?

David Posner: The first thing is just decisiveness. Let me back up a little bit and set the room in a sense of, most people watch basketball games or any sport and you’re watching your teams. You’re watching, hopefully they’re scoring and hitting the home run, scoring a touchdown. You very rarely look at the referees. I came into officiating because just like everybody else, I’m a sports junkie, I love sports. You could see the memorabilia in my background right here.

I love sports. Obviously I’m short, not as athletic to be able to play professionally, so that’s why I wanted to become a referee. Through it, what I learned was it’s the third team. You’ve got two different teams. You’ve got the home and away, and then you’ve got the referees. Through speaking to a couple of friends, got interested in officiating and ended up doing it.

The hardest thing to do is your decisions have a huge impact on the game. A penalty flag in the last two minutes or a foul in the last few minutes can change the outcome of the game, and so people and fans, that’s where they start to notice the referees. It’s really important and one of the biggest things that I’ve learned is how those decisions impact the game. I’ve taken that into real life.

How many times have you sat around in a meeting where people are like, “I don’t know. Should we do this? Should we do that?” Whatever it might be. Just through officiating, I’ve been able to make those split-second decisions, because I can see ahead what my different decisions are going to be able to make. By me making a decision, that’s showing leadership, and it’s allowing people to say, okay, you know what? Let’s do that, because people are always looking for a leader to take on. As a referee, just making those split-second decisions has really helped me in business and become a leader, be able to move up promotion wise and it’s been a huge impact.

Fred Diamond: I want to talk about a couple of angles. You may actually touch on these on the second and the third thing that you’re going to be talking about. But one thing we talk a lot about on the Sales Game Changers podcast is it’s not about you, it’s about the customer. A lot more over the last couple of years, we’ve become clear that it’s not just about the customer, but it’s about the customers’ customer and the customers’ customer because of the supply chain.

When you make a decision, when you call a foul on somebody, you may be affecting a guy’s career. Do you know what I’m saying? Not to get overly dramatic but it may lead to him not being able to play or the coach having to make a decision or things along those lines. As sales professionals, we need to be aware of what we’re offering our customer, because they only care about how they’re servicing their company, and how they’re servicing their customers. I’m just curious, does that go into your decision making process when you are a referee, when you see a call, or is it really just, “I’m a professional, I see a foul, it’s my job to call a foul, I make the call”?

David Posner: I wish it was that black and white. I really do. I wish it could be like, “He hit him in the arm, that’s a foul in the first two minutes, that should be a foul in the last two minutes.” I really do. That’s probably one of the biggest things all my friends get, like, “What’s a foul the first two minutes is a foul in the last two minutes.” But exactly to your point, you have to look at the big picture because exactly what you said, these players are playing to win.

Even I do high school sports. I do high school, college, semi pro and Big3. No matter the level, even these high school coaches, if you lose 10 games in a row, the AD is going to switch it up. Then same thing with these players. If you’re not hitting your shots, if you’re not making the points, there’s going to be impact for everything that happens in the game. As a fan, you don’t want to see a coach that loses 10 in a row.

How does that come back into how that impacts me? Well, not necessarily the ballot itself, but allowing the coach to vent. Here’s a great example. There’s two minutes left in the game, team is down by two points, coach is going to draw up a play for his best shooter to score. This is pretty basic basketball, pretty basic sports stuff. As a referee, I’m getting in position, I’m probably having a good idea of who’s going to shoot the ball and that’s what should happen.

Now, the question is, if that player makes a certain move or drive and now it’s a smaller guard, he’s going to get a bigger player, and he gets hit, well, if a big man hits him, how’s that impacting a shot versus maybe a smaller guard who just swipes at the jersey? Like, is that a foul? What level of foul are we looking at? And knowing that if I make the call or not make the call, that coach’s plan has been altered by my decision.

My impact to make the call or not make the call is impacting the shooter, is impacting the coach, the visiting team as far as if they win or lose. All of that has to go into what I determine a foul and how it impacts it. Again, similar to business in the sense of, if I’m going to give somebody a discount, how is that going to impact long term as far as value of our company and value to them? Everything has a long term impact.

Fred Diamond: I don’t think I mentioned at the beginning but you’re a referee on the Big3, which is of course created by Ice Cube, the commissioners, the Great Hall of Famer Clyde “the glide” Drexler. You’re out there with all of these former NBA players. I guess most of them probably are former and are great college players and it’s on TV, so there’s a lot of money and it’s a big deal. These guys are getting a second chance. I don’t know if anyone have played in the Big3 then made it back to the NBA. Somehow that’s great. One of my favorite players of all time is Joe Johnson.

My question for you is before we get to number two, is preparation. Preparation comes up all the time on the Sales Game Changers podcast. You need to prepare. Every VP I’ve talked about always brings up preparation. You talked about obviously both teams are going to be preparing because they’re going head to head against the competition. Talk a little bit about the preparation that you do.

You mentioned you’re on the third team and there’s two other referees on the court with you at the same time. How do you prepare for the game? Obviously, physically, you got to be able to be of astute mind and you got to be healthy and you’re in great shape, I know that, except on your birthday when you’re eating all the free doughnuts and all those things. But anybody who wants to understand that, go Facebook David. Seriously, talk about the preparation that you and the other referees, and if there’s someone else involved as well, for you to be ready for the game.

David Posner: First off, let me share with your listeners a fantastic book on preparation. It’s called Dare to Prepare by Robert Shapiro. He was actually with the Cal Ripken’s agent. A lot of the stories in that book talk about the value of preparing. I’ve read that book numerous times and it’s one of my gift books. The preparation is extremely important. Again, I do this that at all levels from high school to all the way up. My preparation for a game is obviously physical. I want to make sure I’m in shape but I also want to understand these teams. I don’t want to walk in blind. Some referees do, I personally don’t. I’m looking at a couple of different things. One is record, because I need to know how much this game needs. If it’s early in the season, 00, that’s great, because the team can go certain ways.

Last week in the Big3, we had three games. All three games matter as far as feeding goes. Records matter. I also want to know, especially in high school and college, I want to know if this is a rivalry game. Here in Northern Virginia, if I’ve got Fairfax High School versus Woodson, I know this game is going to be intense. I know that these fans, and these players are going to be a little bit more into this game. I know that matters. Then we could break down coaches and players. This is a little bit more in the weeds, a little bit more geeked out but I know that certain teams are going to run a run and gun offense. If they’re going to run a run and gun offense, as a referee, I want to let them play. I know that calling a foul for a team that runs and guns slows the game down, is detrimental to them.

On the flip side, if I’ve got and what you see a lot in the Big3 is big physical guys, they want fouls. They want to slow that game down. Then of course, if I have a speed versus slow, or I’ve got certain types of players, you mentioned Joe Johnson. We’ll just geek out on Joe Johnson for a minute. You’re 100% right, great player. He was actually one of the ones that made it to the Big3, and then got a 10-day contract with Boston this past year. I’m looking at Joe Johnson. I know he’s a left handed shooter. I know he likes the corners. What that means for me is, I want to be in position to see his plays, and where he’s driving.

Now, same thing in business and in sales. I’m doing research on my companies, these facilities, these nursing homes that I’m working with. I want to know what their census is. I want to know if they’re down or if they’re on their way up. If they’re growing, they might need more staff. I want to know if they’ve gotten certain star ratings from Medicare and Medicaid. I want to know who their people are. Is this a brand new Executive Director at the building or is this somebody that’s new? All of those things that I do to prepare in basketball, I take into real world. Because I know that the more prepared I am, the easier my sales pitch is. The easier my sales pitch is, it’s usually a win-win and game over.

Fred Diamond: All right, number two, what is the second thing that you’ve learned by being a basketball referee?

David Posner: We touched on this a little bit, but managing conflicts. The old adage in refereeing is that every time you make a call, 50% of the crowd loves you, 50% of the crowd hates you. I’ve never made a call where everybody in the team was like, “Oh, great, my team fouled. That was awesome. I’m so happy that we’re giving them two shot free throw line.”

I know that once I make that call, I’m immediately going to get pushback, just like we make decisions in real life all the time. But the nice thing about refereeing, and this is why I push for refereeing more with salespeople, is I get to practice this 40 times a day. I’m constantly getting practice on managing conflicts. That’s why I think refereeing has been such a great tool for me in becoming a salesperson. Because I know that okay, 50% of the crowd is going to love me, 50% of the crowd is going to hate me. Now it’s a matter of, do I think I made that call 100% correct? Then I’m really not going to listen to anybody that’s arguing because that’s right, you hit them on the arm, it’s a foul, we’re not going to discuss this. But maybe you missed it, maybe I got a bad angle. Okay, now I’m much more willing to be open to listening to some place. Same thing going back to the coaches.

If the coach says, “Look, he’s got three fouls, why would he have fouled him but he’s not trying to foul out a game?” Or, “Hey, there’s that best shooter. We’re not going to try to foul the best shooter, why would we have fouled him?” or something along those lines. It’s hearing the coaches out. Being able to make a decision, and then be confident enough to stick with your decision has been such a huge, important lesson for me to be able to learn and be able to take to sales in the sense of, if I’m going to go down this path of calling on certain customers, and this is my pitch, I’m going to stick with it and be able to handle it. Okay, if they’re going to throw me an objection, I’m ready for this.

Fred Diamond: Now, that’s a great point. Obviously, in sales, there’s always objections and a lot of times your preparation is what handles the objections. Also, sometimes you’ll throw in something for a customer. Let’s say, the customer really needs your solution, there’s a great fit, you’ve been meeting and talking about it for a while and then at the last minute the customer says, “Look, I talked to our CFO, we really can’t afford it. Would you throw in another month of service?” Or something, whatever it might be.

You make a decision. Are you going to do that to get the sale? What’s the overall long term success? I’m curious, from your perspective as a referee. Let’s say you make the wrong call and then you go back afterwards and you’re watching the tape or even your partner makes the wrong call, doesn’t really matter and it affects the outcome for the game.

How often do you or do you think about, “Okay, I know I’m going to be refereeing this guy’s game in a weekend or two weekends from now, I’m going to be conscious”? Do you also say something like, “Hey, buddy, I’m sorry, I botched it” or is it part of the game? Let’s say you made 99% of the right calls and you made one that’s wrong. Have you ever apologized, I guess, or do you ever think of like a make-good at some point? Maybe in a couple of weeks, if it’s in the last two minutes of the game or next year even?

David Posner: Similar to sales, I’ve never refereed the perfect game. I’ve never done the complete perfect sales pitch. After my sales presentations, and just after my games, I always look at the tape, I think about what could I have done better? How could I have improved? I’m going to answer your question in two parts.

Number one is during the game because like I said, I’ve never refereed the perfect game. I’ve missed calls during the game that I know I missed. Meaning a player went up and he does some magical thing in the air that I totally didn’t expect him to do and I call the foul early on a player and the player is like, “I never touched him.” He may have turned away from me or I may have missed it, but I was decisive and I made the call, I reported it and strong presentation skills, which we’ll talk about in a little bit.

If the player is like, “Look, ref, I didn’t touch him, I swear I didn’t touch him.” Then two things. One, it depends on the player. But for the most part, I’m going to listen to him and I’ll even on the spot, I’ll say, “Look, I may have missed it.” I will never say I missed it. I will always say I may have missed that call. Or I may have missed it, I’ll keep a lookout for it. Now, there are some players just like there are some executive directors and some customers we work with that will lie to us [laughs]. It does happen, unfortunately, and it’s knowing personalities. If I know that someone who’s lied to me in the past is going to try to do so, I may not listen or I might not hear him.

The second part of it is after the game. Let’s say we had a big call at the end of the game, we make the call and then we go to locker room, we’ll review it and I’ll on tape, I may have missed it. Same thing as far as different personalities, I may, but I’ll usually go up to him. If I know that I missed it, my personality is, I want to let them know. Again, similar to sales, if I know that my team didn’t commit, maybe a caregiver showed up late. Maybe we billed them incorrectly.

In my gut, it doesn’t feel right to just stick my head in the sand. It feels better just to go to the customer say, “Look, you know what? We messed up. I’m so sorry. I really apologize. I’ll make it up to you.” I’m not going to say I’ll make it up to you at refereeing but in sales I would. But in refereeing, I’ll go to the coach and I say, “Hey, look, we reviewed that, you’re 100% right. I kicked that call, I’m sorry.” A lot of times, the coaches and most of the players will actually say, just like in business, “Totally cool. Thank you for telling me, no worries.” Some of them will joke and say, “You owe me one.”

Fred Diamond: Tell us the third thing that you’ve observed that’s made you a better sales leader through your refereeing.

David Posner: Working as a team. Like I mentioned at first, there’s three different teams out there. There’s the home, the away and then the refereeing. It’s really important as a crew to be on the same page. That goes with the preparation we talked about earlier. Talking about the game, knowing what to expect, and is this going to be a run and gun team, is this going to be a physical team?

Making sure that if there’s a foul on one side of the court, let’s make sure it’s a foul on the other side of the court. If we’re starting to let things go because we’ve got a good flow, let’s make sure we’re all in the same place. Most importantly, we don’t want to let subs in or do anything that’s out of whack and just throws off the game completely. Like a random technical foul that nobody saw or nobody heard.

It’s a matter of just making, and that’s done verbally and non-verbally. I’m making eye contact with my partner to make sure I’m ready to play. I’m verbally saying, “Hey, next foul, we’re going one and one.” I’ll get together as a crew between timeouts and halftime and just make sure, “Hey, this is what I see, let’s keep an eye on number white 45, he seems to be a little bit more physical. Hey, I’ve warned the coach twice about stepping on the court, next time we’re going to team up.” Just making sure that we communicate but knowing that we as a team is critical.

Fred Diamond: I’m curious. Again, there’s three referees out on the court for what you do at any given time. One thing we talk a lot about, David Posner, on the Sales Game Changers podcast is mentoring and being mentored. I think I might have asked you that question because that was a question I used to ask prior to March 2020 was tell us about a mentor who affected your career. Do you get coached while you’re refereeing? Is there someone, head of refereeing either in New York or in the stadium, who may pull you over during a timeout and say, “Hey guys, watch in the lane” or whatever it might be.

David Posner: Never during the game. The main reason for that is you don’t want to mess up the officials. You don’t want to tell them, “Hey, keep an eye on 34,” or, “This game is getting out of hand,” or, “You need to call more fouls,” because you don’t want to mess up. So never during the game but yes, 100% afterwards. The higher you go, we’ve got videotape. It’s a little bit harder to get some video on some of the high school games, but for the Big3, not only with videotape, but we’ve got different angles, and we clip plays and so we learn as a group.

It’s tough being on the film. You hear about the football players that Monday you got to go through film session. Referees are doing the same thing. We’re just looking at the plays and saying, “Hey, do we have a good angle?” and all that stuff. We each all have supervisor officials. There are the high school level, and college level, there’s mentor programs to help younger officials come up and we all get evaluated. I’m happy to tell you, I’m about a 95% accuracy in my calls at the different levels, so all of that stuff is reviewed and graded.

Fred Diamond: I got one last question for you. David, it’s a national thing. I know you do a lot of high school stuff and in college but the Big3, it’s on TV. There’s a lot of celebrities who are involved with it. There’s a lot of former NBA players who’ve had tremendous careers. We’ve alluded to a few. If you use the sales analogy, let’s say you’re going after IBM or Apple or whoever might be as a customer, or American Express, Ford, a huge company. You’re probably going to get a little more primed for it. You may be a little bit more on edge because it’s such a big potential account. A lot of the sales professionals listening to the podcast are B2B enterprise sales. There’s a lot of prospects and then there’s always a couple gold chip one type things, or blue chip. Do you keep it cool?

Again, you’ve reached the highest level of refereeing. You’re on TV pretty frequently. You’re in this big league. Do you think about, “Oh my God, there’s Ice Cube and oh, my God, Clyde Drexler and Joe Johnson,” and whoever else might be on? Allen Iverson played a little bit of Big3. Do you just treat them like six base basketball players on the court? It’s just another game. I’m going to have dinner after the game with my buddies. We’re going to go to Morton’s, or are you like, “Oh my God, that’s Allen Iverson just made that play,” or whoever else it might be?

David Posner: We just talked about mentors and one of my mentors in officiating has been NBA official, Scott Foster, who similarly is from the DC metro areas, worked I think 14 or 15 NBA Finals. Before my very first Big3 game, I called him up. I said, “What should I expect?” I was actually going to referee in Chicago at the United Center. I was like, I’ve never refereed in the chip that big. I’ve been to high school and college, United Center, there’s 20,000. I was like, “What should I expect?” He’s like, “First of all, take it all in.” Get there early, look around, get familiar. You’ll see Ice Cube, LL Cool J, TI are sitting in front row. Dr. Jay is one of the coaches versus Gary Davis. He’s like, take it all in. He says, “But, as soon as that clock starts, as soon as that first whistle goes, everything’s got to be focused.”

I think it’s the same thing with all of us in sales. We all want that dream account. Finally, we’ve made the call and said, “Okay, on Tuesday at 8am, you’re going to meet with the CEO of AmEx or whomever, Hilton, and you’ve got that call.” Take it all in, enjoy it. Tell everyone’s like, “I’ve got my dream account, I’ve got my meeting coming up Tuesday at 8am. I’m super, super excited about it,” take it all in. But then at 8am, everything’s just got to be, I’m ready to play. This is why I’m here. Nothing’s going to change. Just because I called a charge or a foul in my high school game, a foul in college game, that’s going to be the foul right here tonight. I got to stay focused on what I’ve done to get me to this point, which is also very critical. Nothing changes. My presentation does not change if I’m doing a high school game, a college game or a Big3 game. What I did in all of those games has gotten me to that point, so I need to do the exact same thing. My presentation for American Express and for Hilton doesn’t change. Whatever I’ve done, I’ve got to keep doing because that’s what got me the appointment.

Fred Diamond: Absolutely. David, I just want to acknowledge you. Again, you were a great interview for us way back in the 80s when we first started the Sales Game Changers podcast on reel-to-reel tape. I appreciate your being here again today. I could talk to you for the next three hours, as you can tell, and I can get really, really even deeper into some of the questions. I want to acknowledge you for reaching a great level with your advocation and also maintaining such a great level as a sales leader and the value that homecare.com and ShiftMed brings to the marketplace.

David, give us a final thought. You’ve given us so many great ideas. Give us one specific thing that people should do right now after listening to today’s Sales Game Changers podcast.

David Posner: I think one of the biggest things you can take away is actually presentation skills. Normally everyone just kind of goes in, and I’ll use actually a police analogy. When a police officer pulls you over, the police officer is never like, “Hey, how’re you doing? So, you know, wanted to check your registration, check your license.” A police officer is always lower voice and very under control and very professional.

Referees are the exact same way. Going back to the police officer. It’s like, “License and registration.” It’s very straightforward. It’s right to the point, low voice and same thing with referees. I know that if I come in as a referee, and I go like, “I think it’s 12 hit them on the arm maybe, not sure. That’s what I’m going with.” It just doesn’t work. You’ll see the great presentation skills and I work on that. I work on my skills all day. Same thing in business. When you go into a presentation, can’t just be like, “Hey, so happy to see everybody. Let’s talk about sales today.” You’ve got to be professional, deeper voice, even for female, deeper voice, straightforward. I think presentation skills across all is probably the biggest takeaway.

Fred Diamond: As I’m thinking about this, the customer is viewing you as someone who is being invited to help them achieve something they need to achieve. Something related to higher productivity and make more money, to save costs, better customer service, whatever it might be. Same thing with the referee, it’s like they’re not viewing, “Gee, I wonder if David Posner had a good day today with homecare.com or how his dog is doing,” or whatever it might be.

They’re seeing you as okay, there’s a referee, there’s three, he’s one of them. Probably may or may not know your name. I don’t really know. He may hear somebody call you David or something. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. They’ve seen you. “Oh, it’s that guy, I’ve seen him before.” They’re expecting you to show up and do the job that you were hired to do which was as flawlessly as possible, manage the game, be fair to both sides, be respectful and do it in the manner. People, they’re not questioning who you are. You’re here. You’re here for a reason.

A lot of times, salespeople, we talk about this on the podcast. They’re like, “Oh my God, how did I get the opportunity to present to AmEx?” Now, if you’ve done it 20 times in your career, you maybe have a little bit of nerves before you get on into the meeting. But for the most part, you know why you’re there because you’ve serviced them before. I love that idea, you are the sales professional and the member of the team who was brought on to help me at a very challenging time. Same thing as a referee, you’re here to play a role to help execute a flawless game for our players and for our fans. Once again, I want to thank David Posner. My name is Fred Diamond and this is the Sales Game Changers podcast.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo

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