A Fantasy Football Lover's Guide to Sales Team (Part 2)

Learn more about elite performers in part 2 of A Fantasy Football Lover's Guide to Sales Talent from Ambition today!

Previous sections of the 2015 Guide: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. You can also read our full 2014 Guide.

Each year, a few key players will decide the fates of your sales force and your fantasy football team. This is your scouting report.

Welcome back to The 2015 Fantasy Football Lover's Guide to Your Salesforce. We're profiling 30 types of people you'll find on both the average sales force and the average Fantasy Football team. We're about to go Mel Kiper, Jr on your sales team.

Part II. Elite Performers

The following six archetypes can be found leading sales teams and Fantasy Football squads year after year.

These are your top performers. Your alpha dogs. The men and women your organization counts on to deliver top-tier performance week in and week out.

And as we'll see with this group, they come in all shapes and sizes.

1. The Freak

If you're lucky, there's a guy on your sales team using a deadly combo of unorthodox methods and advanced skills to close deals and acquire new customers.

People are amazed at the Freak's immediate impact & ability to contribute. Not only does this individual go above and beyond expectations, he or she shatters the limits once thought to apply to the position.

Ex. "Jillian just closed a $10,000 deal with a tweet?!"

NFL Doppelganger: Rob Gronkowski

Typically, your Tight End is putting up the 5th or 6th highest fantasy numbers for your team on a weekly basis.

Unless that Tight End's name is Ron Gronkowski and is liable to blow the doors off any defense he faces on any given week.

A physical specimen who plays with reckless abandon, Gronk is the field sales rep who just moseys into a random corporate office and walks out an hour later with a massive contract and a tee time with the company CEO that weekend.

Signs You May Be The Freak:

You're like the special forces of your sales unit -- they bring you in to close the deals others can't.
Your cold emails get better response rates than most people get from their significant others.

2. The Petulant Superstar

Talented, yet mercurial. Passionate, yet insufferable.

Half your team hates the Petulant Superstar, but the results speak for themselves. Just put "team culture" aside for a minute and look at those numbers.

When you have someone this good, you have two options:

Make a statement by cutting this guy loose and worrying about replacing his or her productivity later.
Stay out of the damn way and let those profits keep rolling in.

NFL Doppelganger: Dez Bryant

Dez Bryant Gif

The only repeat Doppelganger from 2014!

12 months later, it's still true -- the NFL needs more people like Dez Bryant. From my 2014 writeup on Dear Ol' Dez (who crushed it last year for my Fantasy Squad):

"Every Sunday for the next four months, we're all going to be treated to cutaways showcasing America's (Most Dysfunctional) Team.

That means shots of Dez making a ridiculous catch over three defenders, followed by him doing something insane. Dez Bryant could knock out his own Offensive Coordinator right there on the sideline and I wouldn't be surprised. This man has no limits."

None of that has changed.

Signs You May Be the Petulant Superstar:

You put up record numbers and still can't get a golf invite with company Execs.
You feel the need to berate someone, anyone, whenever a deal you're working on goes South.
You begin conversations about your direct supervisor with the phrase: "That idiot."
You feel a strange kinship with Drake -- there's a guy that gets you.

3. The Rising Superstar

The pride and joy of every hiring manager and fantasy team owner, your rising superstar is the talented young pick-up that you swooped in and snagged.

Rising superstars in the sales world tend to be those who are hand-selected, then groomed into elite performers, thereby becoming the ultimate validation for their proud sales managers.

NFL Doppelganger: Leveon Bell

Did I call Leveon Bell being last year's Sleeper? Let me double check real quick ... what do you know, I did.

No longer anyone's Sleeper, Leveon is now a classic example of the "Rising Superstar."

I'm convinced that the Steelers could line Leveon up behind behind Carnegie Mellon's O-Line and he'd still shred NFL defenses like they're made of papier mache.

Signs You May Be The Rising Superstar:

Company leadership greets you by name in the hallway.
You still have no clue who half of them are.

4. The Quiet Storm

This guy crept up on you. An inauspicious start begat a few years of steadily accelerating increases in performance. Then all of a sudden, you wake up one day and realize what you have.

That up-and-coming sales rep who suddenly defeats a hated competitor for a deal in humiliating fashion?

There's your Quiet Storm.

NFL Doppelganger: Antonio Brown

Your Quiet Storm will have moments like the above, where everyone suddenly lifts their heads and goes, damn, that guy/girl really might be a legitimate badass.

Antonio Brown's coming out party is case-in-point.

A 6th round draft pick who quietly developed in the shadows of Hines Ward and Mike Wallace, amidst constant controversy surrounding the team's offensive strategy and the relationship between new Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley and Ben Roethlisberger, Brown fully came into his own last year.

And yet, he'll still be underrated and/or overlooked by half of your Fantasy League during the opening rounds of this year's draft.

Signs You May Be The Quiet Storm:

You execute at a high level, with minimal flash or fanfare.
You work for a prestigious organization that takes success as a given.
Your Dad and your predecessor are both industry legends, and yet, expectations about your capabilities have been tempered.

5. The Humblebragger

So named because this person is probably the most annoying guy on your sales team.

And yet, he or she performs well enough that you have to begrudge respect, even while he or she manages to be a smarmy, gaping void of charisma.

The Humblebragger's two key traits are 1) consistently above-average performance, and 2) a personality that screams mediocrity.

NFL Doppelganger: Joe Flacco

No, I've never heard Joe Flacco humblebrag, Yes, I know Joe Flacco is a Super Bowl MVP.

But facts are facts -- Joe Flacco has one of the least inspiring personalities in pro sports and, torrid 2012 postseason aside, the Joe Flacco Administration of the Ravens Offense has hardly set the football world on fire.

When your iconic, newly-retired teammate is taking passive aggressive shots at you, you qualify as a Humblebragger in my book.

Signs You May Be The Humblebragger:

You literally Humblebrag. (Side note: R.I.P. Harris Wittels)
Literally nothing about you is offensive -- and yet people still love to hate you.
You perform just well enough to allow people to put up with you.

6. Waiver-Wire Gold

Let's do a little experiment. Fantasy football team owners, can you name the person in your league that owned Odell Beckham, Jr. last season?

Of course you can, because whoever picked up Odell and his glorious hands struck Fantasy Gold in 2014, and likely ranked that move as a Top 5 personal highlight of 2014.

The sales equivalent of Waiver-Wire Gold is someone your company took a huge risk on -- who lacked experience, pedigree or anything resembling a track record of success -- and ended up capturing the hearts and minds of your entire company with their remarkable performance.

NFL Doppelganger: Odell Beckham, Jr.

Odell Beckham Jr.

Death-defying feats of skill! Dispatching of feckless competitors! Single-handedly redeeming a long-maligned team leader!

2014 was the Odell Beckham show -- from his first amazing catch onward, Odell went from a literal unknown in many Fantasy Leagues to the most terrifying guy on the opposing team's lineup come Playoff time.

Signs You May Be Waiver-Wire Gold:

You've got next to no experience -- only the relentless hunger for money, love for the hustle and preternatural persuasive abilities.
Your Marketing team consistently throws you abysmal excuses for qualified leads that you turn around and close in 3 meetings.

Creating Your Fantasy Sales Team

That concludes Part 2 of our 2015 Fantasy Football Lover's Guide to Your Salesforce. If you're sick of the same old sales contest, check out Ambition. Our platform lets teams take a "Fantasy Football" approach to workforce contests, and has been featured in the likes of the Harvard Business Review, Business Insider and the Sporting News.

Scope out our Product Overview for more information. And thanks for reading.

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