The quarterback mindset in enterprise sales

In American football the quarterback handles the ball on nearly every offensive play. They don't block, they rarely run and they can't catch their own passes. What they do is read the defence, call the play and make sure the other ten players know where to go. When an offence scores, that coordination is usually why.

I think that describes an enterprise sales director's job pretty well. Big B2B deals tend to go to whoever coordinates best. That means getting your own product, legal, finance and customer success people behind one plan, getting the buyer's committee to agree with each other, and keeping things moving through a long sales cycle. A strong pitch helps, but it won't carry a deal through a large buying committee and a procurement process on its own.

Read the field first

Quarterbacks spend hours on film before a game. At the line they look at how the defence has set up and change the call if they need to.

Sales leaders should do the same homework before putting people on a deal. Find out who owns the budget, who influences the decision, who could block it and what problem the business actually wants solved. Look at the competition and the internal politics too. Deals that surprise you late on are often the ones nobody mapped properly at the start.

Guide your team

Every player on the field has an assignment. Receivers need their routes and linemen need to know who they're blocking. If one person gets it wrong, the play usually falls apart.

In an enterprise deal your team is much bigger than the sales reps. Solutions engineers, product specialists, legal, finance, executive sponsors and customer success all have a part. So do the champions inside the prospect who argue your case when you aren't in the room. Each of them should know what they're responsible for and when they'll be needed. A short weekly deal huddle covers most of this, and nobody should turn up to a customer meeting unsure why they're there.

Champions need the most help. They're your receivers, running routes inside the customer's business. Give them the business case, answers to the objections they'll hear and the wording their CFO will respond to. If they don't know the play, they can't make the catch.

Build consensus early

Enterprise purchases are decided by groups, and everyone in the group wants something different. The CFO looks at return on investment and IT wants to know about security and integration. The people who'll use the product care about their workflow, while procurement cares about terms.

Relying on one contact is like throwing to the same receiver every play. The defence works it out quickly. Bring in the economic buyer, technical evaluators, end users, procurement, security and legal early on. You'll hear objections while there's still time to answer them and you'll have some say in the requirements before they're fixed. You're also less likely to be vetoed late by someone you never met.

That last risk is the one I'd worry about most. Stalled deals rarely end with a clear no. They go quiet because someone important was left out.

Agree a plan with the buyer and hold both sides to it

A quarterback manages the whole drive. They keep track of the downs, the clock and how far there is to go. In sales, the equivalent is a mutual action plan.

You build it with the prospect. It covers each step between today and go-live, such as technical validation, security review, legal redlines, procurement approval, final sign-off and the implementation kick-off. Every step gets an owner and a date, and both companies agree to them.

A plan like this shows up unrealistic timelines early and gives the buyer a share of the responsibility for getting the deal done. It also gives you a good reason to follow up, since you're checking progress against dates you set together. When one slips you see it straight away and can change the call, rather than finding out at quarter-end.

Owning the result

Quarterbacks get too much credit for wins and too much blame for losses, and the good ones accept both. Sales directors should work the same way. Be honest about the deals you lose, including your own part in them, and give the credit for wins to the people who did the work.