“Make a game of it” – advice given to me once that really stuck. It is nothing terribly complex, we’re going to spend the majority of our life in one practice or another, either work or family or both. The counsel is to create energy in the pursuit by ‘making a game of it’. Well, I found it led me to more questions than answers at first. Just what is a ‘game’? How do I make a game of something, and why should I? Why will making a game of a part of my life somehow help me put more energy into it? After a lot of digging I believe I’ve found us some answers.
For me, when I’m not sure of something, I default to creating what I call an operational definition. Paul Hersey taught me this long ago, and I started by laying down my definition for the word ‘game’.
Game – an amusement or pastime; a diversion; a single occasion of activity; a competitive activity involving skill, chance or endurance, played according to a set of rules, usually for your own amusement or that of spectators; a contest with rules
That’s a broad operational definition, 39 words to be exact, and I’d like to apply it to the game of sales. A game is a diversion, it aint life and death. A game takes place in a single relatively brief session, they don’t go on forever (except sometimes in capital equipment sales). Finally, there is a competitive dynamic to games – even if it’s just a game of solitaire, we want to win.
Reading this definition over and over got me to thinking, how will I make a game of sales, and why? What began to dawn on me right then and there was the fact that all games seem to have exactly two things in common – all games have rules and all games have rewards.
Rule – a guideline governing conduct or action
Think about it, there’s always a set of rules in any card game, dice game, or ‘ball’ game. Rules rule, from billiards to baseball to bocce. Sometimes there are lines painted on a table or the ground to guide our play. Some games even provide live direction in the form of umpires or referees. Rules are a given, and that’s what drives a seller’s protocol for us – it provides the rules of purposeful interaction.
So, what about rewards, why do I want to play the game of sales. All games have two things in common, rules and rewards. The how, and the why.
Reward: the return on execution of a given behavior; a positive reinforcement
A positive reinforcement…a return on behavior – that is why we play all of the games we do. Rules tell how to play a game, the reward is what we get out of it – and why we might be motivated to play the game again, and again. The gold standard for what drives everything we do from within is called ‘intrinsic motivation theory’, and the man behind it is Steven Reiss. According to his theory, there are 16 basic desires bubbling within all of us:
Acceptance, Curiosity, Eating, Family, Honor, Idealism, Independence, Order, Physical Activity, Power, Romance, Saving, Social Contact, Social Status, Tranquility and Vengeance.
What are the rewards for you? To ‘make a game of it’, you need to know what the rules are, and what you get out of it. As of this writing I’d have to say my rules are The Seller’s Protocol®, and that curiosity, status and independence are the drivers of what I do professionally. How about you, how do you make sales fun … how do you make a game of it?
-Don Brown
don@donbrown.org
Don Brown dedicates his career to ‘helping people with people’ in leadership, sales and customer service. Bilingual and experienced at the executive and line-level alike, you see the results of his work across dozens of industries, including brewing, automotive, airline, banking and medical equipment.
Speaking, writing, coaching and selling to the best – Ford Motor Company, Anheuser-Busch, United Airlines, Harley-Davidson, Jaguar Cars, Hilton Hotels and many, many more – Don takes great pride in long-standing customer relationships (some running well over twenty years).
