Are You A Tethered Sales Hawk?

Is your first response to say “NO – not ME! I have freedom to fly where I want, when I want and to hunt as I want!”  

But do you? I say most sale professionals are untethered and suffer for it in their performance  -- and most importantly in lost potential -- as a result. 

Consider the reasons why the hawk is tethered in the first place. A tethered hawk was not raised in the wild. The majority are raised from birth to have an intimate relationship with their falconer. Without the tether, the bird will fly too far away without knowing how to return. One would think they can, but the domesticated hawk does not know how to survive long term in the wild.

Immerse yourself into being the hawk on the hunt for a moment. Transfixed by the desire and need to hunt, his keen senses are easily lured and thus distracted beyond all else. He is driven to follow instinct, hunt the prey, seek and search…travel in any direction where the hunt-lust will drive him.

Thus, the tether serves as a physical compass back from the rapture of the hunt, when chase might give way to miles and miles of distance in unknown territory from which the bird can’t return.

Over time, it is possible the hawk will learn to return on its own, and then the tether can be replaced by a whistle. This becomes the anchor to return to the safety and structure of life with the falconer.

Consider the tether represents discipline in sales behaviors. Without it, we leave each day intending to hunt…but a myriad of impulses, distractions, emotional slams can drive us off course…and do.

Of course we didn’t grow up in the ‘wild’ either. We have been domesticated – like it or not. We have infrastructure and metrics associated with our sales (hunting). We have to report (return) any way we look at it.

Anytime we do not entertain process, system, discipline, application of metrics and data – we go for a period of time untethered  -- and thus shackled my our own stubbornness. This is not true freedom. How can we produce value for our business and family when we to hunt at a never-ending pace?

To create value for our clients and companies, and to truly serve, we must work our playbooks with a discipline that creates the ‘hawk’ mind for ‘flights’ – where the prey, the strategy and the desired outcome are all planned with an expectation of result.

Envision in your mind the moment your claws grab the prey (the “close”) and then your soar home to be celebrated by your handler (team)…

I for one will celebrate being the Tethered Sales Hawk…I’m working on hearing that whistle now.

Thank you for the great ideas @servant leadership and @sales Overdrive