As most of you know, Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout signed an extension to his contract that gives him a 12-year agreement worth $426 million. When I first read about this last Tuesday when my ESPN Alert popped up on my phone (the whole concept of an ESPN “alert” makes me laugh), I knew there would be ongoing debate about an athlete being worth that much money. Surprisingly, the opinions were split, with slightly more supporting the decision. However, I didn’t agree with the reasons that I heard from either side:
- In his first seven seasons, Trout has won two MVP awards, finished second four times, and fourth one time. He is worth it.
- The Angels have never won a play-off game with Mike Trout. If he’s not helping them win, then he’s not worth it.
- He’s a model citizen, represents the organization well, and works harder than anyone else. He’s worth every penny.
None of these achievements, failures, or attributes earned him this crazy contract. The three bullets above talk about value or lack of value. Value didn’t win this huge contract. Perceived value won Mike Trout $426 million.
Why should this matter to sales people? Because that’s your job – making sure your customers and prospects perceive more value in you than your competition; more value in you than your price; and more value in moving forward with you than being stagnant.
Someone had to tell the Angels about their billion-dollar television contract being related to Trout. Someone had to share Trout’s ridiculously high WAR (Wins Above Replacement) statistic and how his individual performance was directly related to team victories. Someone also illustrated the negative fallout that would happen if Trout decided to sign with another team. Finally, someone connected the Angel’s $1.8 billion valuation to Trout being on their roster. Those were the line items that added up to Mike Trout’s value that was perceived by ownership and executives, not RBI’s or batting average.
In your world, that someone is you, the sales professional. It’s not about video surveillance technology, it’s about decreasing crime and increasing revenue. It’s not about hosting access control in the cloud, it’s about an IT Manager or GM not having to work on the weekends to update the server. And it’s not about data protection, it’s about the liability on and personal obligation of ownership and management to protect their data.
You have to communicate this level of value, and make sure that your customers perceive it as more valuable than your competition can provide; more value than your price; and valuable enough to get them to act. BTW, if you ever sell something for $426 million, please let me know!
