Recently I was visiting a client and sitting in on a sales meeting, when the GM flew in, looking as animated as I had ever seen him.
It seems that a nearby sister-cluster’s sales team had thrown down the gauntlet. Not only did they have the gall to suggest they were a more potent sales team, but they had the gall to do it in a song!
A song?! How dare they, this smaller market!?
And to make matters worse, the song was funny and clever and biting in just the right good-natured way, even the jabs at the GM’s choice in neckties.
How DARE they?!
So the agenda for this sales meeting would be tossed out, the GM said. And it would be replaced by a new objective: Counterattack!
Our foe expected a response and as God is my witness they surely would be getting one. Because there’s nothing that riles up a room full of sellers more than a competitive challenge from another riled up room full of sellers.
We would have to tell a better story than they did, the GM said. And we would have to tell that story better (high performance does that – it lifts the performance of all).
Bam! Off to brainstorming…. What would our messages be? How would we tell them? Who can do the music? The animation?
And so it was that Cluster A met Cluster B on the field of battle, and in this congenial yet combative Game of Thrones only one army of sellers would emerge victorious.
At least in this round.
It was a sublime moment for me, watching this unfold. It was the kind of experience that many insist has long since been baked out of radio. Yet here it was, in all its fun-loving, good-natured, what-it’s-really-all-about glory.
And these warriors were far from war-weary.
For good-natured competition is fun. And having fun makes for a fun workplace. And a fun workplace makes for a happy workplace. And a happy workplace makes better radio. And better radio makes happier consumers and happier clients.
Let the Game begin.