7 Sales Lessons You Can Learn From Michael Jordan's Story - Movie Air

Matt Damon uses a Poison Pill tactic to win here. A Poison Pill is a preemptive tactic aimed at frustrating, delaying, or even stopping a deal from happening (i.e., MJ signing with Adidas).

Now, let’s work through this dialogue (script) and find the 7 major takeaways.

1) Vaccaro isn’t afraid to confront the buyer and say, “…with respect, I think that’s a mistake.”

2) He then tries to strike a non-committal deal, “Uh,..I’ll make a bet with you. I’ll tell you exactly how those meetings are gonna go and if I’m wrong then don’t take a meeting with Nike.”

3) He then drops Poison Pill #1 on Converse. By telling Mrs. Jordan what they’re going to say and do (e.g., wearing red ties for the Bulls, there are only a few other players who gave me that feeling). And then he makes this brilliant move, Ask them, “How’s Michael gonna stand out from these other players?” How’s he gonna be different?” and see how they respond.

4) With this, Vaccaro has now ‘infiltrated’ the meeting without having to attend! By using Mrs. Jordan as a proxy for asking his questions, he's essentially in the room.

5) When asked about Adidas, he invokes Poison Pill #2 in a circuitous way. First, he acknowledges that Adidas is a safe choice. They’ll say, “We have the best shoes, plain and simple. All leather. All the kids want to wear them. Converse isn’t this cool." and admits that they’re not wrong.

6) Next, he pivots to the Poison Pill question, Here’s what you should ask them, “Who’s running your company? I think 4 different people in the room are gonna give you 4 different answers.” This creates doubt in their leadership.

7) And he makes Mrs. Jordan feel the pain of multiple decision-makers by saying, “And that’s the problem at Adidas right now, and it’s gonna be a real headache for you the next few years.”

Now, how many times has a client told you that they’re looking at other options? Many! So, what can we glean from this exchange that we can apply to selling today?

First, we need to be bold and tell a client when we earnestly believe they’re making a wrong choice.

Second, need to anticipate what our competitors are going to say about themselves and what they’re going to say about us.

Third, let’s arm our prospects with the right questions to ask because they simply don’t know or are overwhelmed and haven’t thought through what to ask.

Lastly, a sales poison pill script follows this simple format:
You: “Here’s what our competition is going to say (fill in the blank). And here’s what I want you to ask them (fill in the blank)”

http://www.VictorAntonio.com

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