(09-20-2016 11:25 AM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  I'm not concerned with what you demand from your team, I just think you're hilarious insisting Marshall fans have higher expectations than the rest of us. You might believe that to be true, but Doc's tenure betrays that notion.

Even to this day, Marshall has the highest bowl win percentage in NCAA history. Marshall has the highest home win percentage in their home stadium (> 5 years). Marshall has the second highest win percentage of all G5 schools since the start of the BCS era, just a few percentage points behind Boise.

In the previous 19 seasons since the return to FBS, we have...
...finished the season ranked 21% of the time.
... won 10 or more games 42% of the time.
... won a division title 42% of those seasons
... won a conference title 32% of the years.
... defeated another conference champion or co-champion 21% of those seasons.
... AVERAGED 1.26 bowl championship, division championship, and conference championship trophies PER YEAR. We average more than 1 trophy to the trophy case every year for two FBS decades!

You can say that it's silly for Marshall fans to have higher expectations than anyone else, but who here has anything close to this above?

(09-20-2016 07:33 PM)CoachMaclid Wrote:  

(09-20-2016 11:25 AM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  I'm not concerned with what you demand from your team, I just think you're hilarious insisting Marshall fans have higher expectations than the rest of us. You might believe that to be true, but Doc's tenure betrays that notion.

Even to this day, Marshall has the highest bowl win percentage in NCAA history. Marshall has the highest home win percentage in their home stadium (> 5 years). Marshall has the second highest win percentage of all G5 schools since the start of the BCS era, just a few percentage points behind Boise.

In the previous 19 seasons since the return to FBS, we have...
...finished the season ranked 21% of the time.
... won 10 or more games 42% of the time.
... won a division title 42% of those seasons
... won a conference title 32% of the years.
... defeated another conference champion or co-champion 21% of those seasons.
... AVERAGED 1.26 bowl championship, division championship, and conference championship trophies PER YEAR. We average more than 1 trophy to the trophy case every year for two FBS decades!

You can say that it's silly for Marshall fans to have higher expectations than anyone else, but who here has anything close to this above?

Pick nits all you want, I'll amend, it's silly to suggest Marshall "demands championships" when you have two in the last fifteen years. ****, Middle can even make that claim.

We've lost four league games in three years since C-USA 2.0 got blown up. Outside of ODU, Marshall generates millions more of revenue that any other CUSA East member. That doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that team with our record to expect to be playing for championships most years with this assembled "conference of convenience".

(09-20-2016 09:56 PM)CoachMaclid Wrote:  We've lost four league games in three years since C-USA 2.0 got blown up. Outside of ODU, Marshall generates millions more of revenue that any other CUSA East member. That doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that team with our record to expect to be playing for championships most years with this assembled "conference of convenience".

"Being in the hunt" and "demanding championships" are not synonymous.

(09-20-2016 09:18 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(09-20-2016 07:33 PM)CoachMaclid Wrote:  

(09-20-2016 11:25 AM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  I'm not concerned with what you demand from your team, I just think you're hilarious insisting Marshall fans have higher expectations than the rest of us. You might believe that to be true, but Doc's tenure betrays that notion.

Even to this day, Marshall has the highest bowl win percentage in NCAA history. Marshall has the highest home win percentage in their home stadium (> 5 years). Marshall has the second highest win percentage of all G5 schools since the start of the BCS era, just a few percentage points behind Boise.

In the previous 19 seasons since the return to FBS, we have...
...finished the season ranked 21% of the time.
... won 10 or more games 42% of the time.
... won a division title 42% of those seasons
... won a conference title 32% of the years.
... defeated another conference champion or co-champion 21% of those seasons.
... AVERAGED 1.26 bowl championship, division championship, and conference championship trophies PER YEAR. We average more than 1 trophy to the trophy case every year for two FBS decades!

You can say that it's silly for Marshall fans to have higher expectations than anyone else, but who here has anything close to this above?

Pick nits all you want, I'll amend, it's silly to suggest Marshall "demands championships" when you have two in the last fifteen years. ****, Middle can even make that claim.

I'm not saying it's right or that I agree with the tone, but you have to understand our Herd football culture. It's the same culture that unfortunately led to Jeff Bower "resigning" at Southern Miss.

There's a certain set of expectations that come with the territory at Marshall. I'm not expecting you to understand. But this is ingrained here in Huntington. It goes back to our Bobby Pruett days.

Under Pruett, Marshall won 5 MAC championships from 1997 to 2002. We owned the MAC. Going into CUSA from those days became a struggle under lesser coaching, so we understand the deep importance of great leadership there. That's what is making some lose their ever loving minds over losing to Akron. They can't get their head around the fact other programs may be better equipped to win.

Look, Doc Holliday is going no where. But those not happy with Doc are looking at things from the point of view I laid out.

(09-20-2016 06:20 PM)eaglebeaver Wrote:  

(09-19-2016 01:00 PM)banker Wrote:  Don't know how many of your are in sales or have managed sales people, but if you have, you'll get this thought a little clearer than others. In sales there are really three roles, finders, minders and grinders.

Finders are your relentless prospectors, they love the challenge of bringing in new accounts and call all day, every day. Their success is defined by their ability to blow away sales quotas.

Minders are your sales folks that are better suited for portfolio management. They take great care of customers, build relationships, strengthen bonds. Their weakness tends to be that they really don't like reaching out to new prospects, they like their comfort zone.

Grinders are the ones that like the nuts and bolts of the process. They like analyzing the deal, putting together presentations and sales pitches, tracking things. They will do some calling, not to the level of the finders, but better than the minders.

Doc is a finder, he's not a minder or a grinder. He is a relentless recruiter with an overwhelming belief that if he can only sign the best talent, everything else will take care of itself if you have the proper systems in place. Problem is, just as with a sales person of this type, you don't play the role of the minder. You don't take time to truly learn the customers and what makes them tick. You are always enamored with the new customer instead of the one you already have. In Doc's case just substitute player for customer. This is why we have been a "young" team for about every one of his 7 years. Our defensive backfield this year, which was burned to a crisp by Akron, should include AJ Leggett, who would be a senior with 3 years starting experience. Tiquan Lang, a senior with 3 years starting experience. Speedy Howard, who would be a highly regarded RS Freshman who was going to start last year before being injured in Fall camp. Corey Tindal, a senior with 4 years as a starter, and Antavious Rowe, a second year starter. Now, all 5 of those wouldn't have started this year, but three of them would have. Tindal left early with no chance of being drafted to roll the dice on getting picked up as an UDFA (which he was), Howard just decided to leave and go JUCO to get a shot at a P5 program, and the other three were kicked off over the last 12 months, mainly because, I believe, the staff had not done an effective job of "minding" these young men, building relationships and understanding what made them tick.

Almost 30% of Doc's recruits have left before their eligibility expired, been kicked off the team, or never played a down because they never showed up. BTW, this isn't a prop thing. Most of this 30% was comprised of fully qualified guys. You win games with seniors and juniors and right now we just don't have that many of those that have actually been here since their freshman year.

Finders, minders and grinders, oh my!!

Been is sales for nearly a million years (OK. 35) and I've never known one person who enjoys making sales calls all day long.....Now, someone may start off doing it because they realize eventually it'll pay off, but once they start meeting goals, it tapers off substantially...

I would call all day, every day, if I could. To me it's the easy, fun part of sales and just was always natural for me. Unfortunately, like most things in corporate America, if you are really good at something they make you stop doing it and try to get you to teach others to do it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy managing and training sales folks and still get to do a lot of calling, but in a more observational way.

What I have learned is you can make a good salesman better, but it's almost impossible to improve a bad or mediocre sales person to the point they can be a high performer. You either have it or you don't. If you have it, you can get better with structure, presentation and technique. If you don't have it, the best you can hope for is a bad sales person with with great structure, presentation and technique.

The other thing I've learned is if you run across a guy that can cover all three phases, pay them whatever it takes to get and keep them, give them a ton of freedom, give them opportunities to try new things, offer to mow their grass, whatever you have to do to hold on to them. They are only slightly less rare than unicorns and they will absolutely make your career.

In the context of football, great coaches are like those unicorn sales people. There are very few great head coaches in college football, coaches that can win anywhere. They are the top 5%. The next 75-80% are all pretty much interchangeable, if they get some good players, they'll win, if they don't, they won't. The other 15-20% are just filler. It's really not unlike any other profession except that the mediocre and bad are still really well compensated and always seem to get another job.

(09-21-2016 12:01 AM)banker Wrote:  

(09-20-2016 06:20 PM)eaglebeaver Wrote:  

(09-19-2016 01:00 PM)banker Wrote:  Don't know how many of your are in sales or have managed sales people, but if you have, you'll get this thought a little clearer than others. In sales there are really three roles, finders, minders and grinders.

Finders are your relentless prospectors, they love the challenge of bringing in new accounts and call all day, every day. Their success is defined by their ability to blow away sales quotas.

Minders are your sales folks that are better suited for portfolio management. They take great care of customers, build relationships, strengthen bonds. Their weakness tends to be that they really don't like reaching out to new prospects, they like their comfort zone.

Grinders are the ones that like the nuts and bolts of the process. They like analyzing the deal, putting together presentations and sales pitches, tracking things. They will do some calling, not to the level of the finders, but better than the minders.

Doc is a finder, he's not a minder or a grinder. He is a relentless recruiter with an overwhelming belief that if he can only sign the best talent, everything else will take care of itself if you have the proper systems in place. Problem is, just as with a sales person of this type, you don't play the role of the minder. You don't take time to truly learn the customers and what makes them tick. You are always enamored with the new customer instead of the one you already have. In Doc's case just substitute player for customer. This is why we have been a "young" team for about every one of his 7 years. Our defensive backfield this year, which was burned to a crisp by Akron, should include AJ Leggett, who would be a senior with 3 years starting experience. Tiquan Lang, a senior with 3 years starting experience. Speedy Howard, who would be a highly regarded RS Freshman who was going to start last year before being injured in Fall camp. Corey Tindal, a senior with 4 years as a starter, and Antavious Rowe, a second year starter. Now, all 5 of those wouldn't have started this year, but three of them would have. Tindal left early with no chance of being drafted to roll the dice on getting picked up as an UDFA (which he was), Howard just decided to leave and go JUCO to get a shot at a P5 program, and the other three were kicked off over the last 12 months, mainly because, I believe, the staff had not done an effective job of "minding" these young men, building relationships and understanding what made them tick.

Almost 30% of Doc's recruits have left before their eligibility expired, been kicked off the team, or never played a down because they never showed up. BTW, this isn't a prop thing. Most of this 30% was comprised of fully qualified guys. You win games with seniors and juniors and right now we just don't have that many of those that have actually been here since their freshman year.

Finders, minders and grinders, oh my!!

Been is sales for nearly a million years (OK. 35) and I've never known one person who enjoys making sales calls all day long.....Now, someone may start off doing it because they realize eventually it'll pay off, but once they start meeting goals, it tapers off substantially...

I would call all day, every day, if I could. To me it's the easy, fun part of sales and just was always natural for me. Unfortunately, like most things in corporate America, if you are really good at something they make you stop doing it and try to get you to teach others to do it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy managing and training sales folks and still get to do a lot of calling, but in a more observational way.

What I have learned is you can make a good salesman better, but it's almost impossible to improve a bad or mediocre sales person to the point they can be a high performer. You either have it or you don't. If you have it, you can get better with structure, presentation and technique. If you don't have it, the best you can hope for is a bad sales person with with great structure, presentation and technique.

The other thing I've learned is if you run across a guy that can cover all three phases, pay them whatever it takes to get and keep them, give them a ton of freedom, give them opportunities to try new things, offer to mow their grass, whatever you have to do to hold on to them. They are only slightly less rare than unicorns and they will absolutely make your career.

In the context of football, great coaches are like those unicorn sales people. There are very few great head coaches in college football, coaches that can win anywhere. They are the top 5%. The next 75-80% are all pretty much interchangeable, if they get some good players, they'll win, if they don't, they won't. The other 15-20% are just filler. It's really not unlike any other profession except that the mediocre and bad are still really well compensated and always seem to get another job.

I disagree with you somwhat banker. I have developed and turned bad salespeople into good salespeople plenty of times. Sales is a science, more than anything. What you mean to say is, you can't turn an unmotivated individual into a good salesperson. If you have no motivation, nothing can help you succeed.

If you have a motivated person, or if you find their motivation and tap into it, you can get results from any of those people. Some are really bad, but sales can be taught, and refined to the point that its a routine presentation. Training a rep so that they know what to say, to 99% of objections and to root out smoke screens, is your responsibility as a leader.

That being said, you can make a bad sales person a pretty good one, a decent sales person a good one, and a good one a great one.... but if you run into a great one, you let them go do their thing and rake in the money for you. Thats the biggest problem in the corporate world, everyone wants aomething to be struxtured and micromanaged to the point that your great salespeople off the bat, end up leaving, because those people are too creative and too good to be saddled with inferior sales processes.

Something I always did and had phenomenal success with, was to come up with a sales strategy and qualification process, and dumb it down enough so it could be executed by a very average salesperson at a high level. Thats where your going to win, along with teaching universal closing techniques, that apply in every situation.

But back to the point... I routinely took the worst sales people in an entire region, worked with them one on one for a week, and watched as 80% of them became some of the best sales people at their locations, from the worst in their regions. The others either improved some, or were let go, due to being the ones i talked about that are not motivated and choose not to learn to become better.