Fantasy Football: Negotiating The Trade Deadline

The trade deadline is fast approaching in most leagues, and owners are scrambling to make last minute deals to strengthen their teams. Maybe somebody just offered you a batch of players for your stud. Maybe you want to unload a player with name value for somebody who's doing it now. Odds are you could use a brush up in the art of negotiaion.

It doesn't matter if you're trying to convince your kids to do their homework, or convincing someone that Chad Johnson is going to have a great second half of the season, a sales presentation is a sales presenatation.

Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale is a must read for anyone who's ever tried to convince anyone to do anything.

This piece takes three sales concepts, and translates them to the realm of fantasy football. No matter what your product every salesman must build value, and overcome objections before he can close the deal.

Intro.

In sales when you first meet a client there is a certain amount of small talk that must be executed before business can be discussed. Most of us have a relationship with the owners in our fantasy leagues. We'll talk about our kids, or homework. Maybe our kid's homework. Then we mention fantasy football and we talk about our teams. What going well? What's going poorly?

This small talk can't be ignored. An old sales manager of mine used to tel me: "People will always let you know how to close them, you just have to listen to what they're saying."

Ask open ended questions about what they feel like they need on their team. Who are their favorite players? Listen to what they tell you about their wants and needs, you are going to need to touch on these things in the meat of your pitch.

Value Build.

The value build is the easiest part of any sales presentation. If you've heard your prospect, you know what they want to hear. This is when you start to take control of the conversation. Your open ended questions become closed ended questions.

What do you think about your wide recievers? is an open ended question You think Chad Johnson is going break out soon, don't you? Is a closed ended question. The prospect has two choices, yes or no - and to avoid conflict he must say yes. People love to avoid conflict.

You use these questions to strategicly make your thoughts come out of your targets mouth. If you put a phrase like "Wouldn't you say" before your statement people often agree just because it sounds like the easier option.

String together questions like this until yo have made your point, while also making it sound like it was your prospect's idea.

At this point you want to test close. Ask a series of questions to which you already know the answer, followed by one to which you hope the answer is yes.

i.e

YOu: "So you're sick of LT and his big toe right?"
P: Yeah
You: And you're crazy deep at running back right?
P: Yeah, I keep benching guys who score waiting on him to turn around.
You: You're receivers are pretty bad, aren't they. Like Ocho-Stinko.
P:
Objections.

Close.