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Lessons from Nick Saban

This is the time of year when we get fired up about the college football playoffs, who is going to which Bowl game, and which teams will be in the elite four for a chance at the college football National Championship.\xa0 Nobody in college football has been to the \u201cbig dance\u201d more often and won more national titles than Nick Saban, the coach of the Crimson Tide of Alabama.

Now, it pains me to say that because I\u2019m a Georgia Bulldog fan, so Alabama is considered one of our arch enemies, and frankly, I\u2019m tired of seeing them at #1 year after year.\xa0 Of course, that pleases one of my colleagues Danny who not only is a \u201cBama Boy\u201d, but also worships at the feet of Tom Brady. \xa0 But when you have someone that is that successful, you have to take a look at what he does differently and think about what we might learn from his strategy, plan and process to see if there are some lessons we can apply to the channel.

Here are four things I\u2019ve researched that break down Nick Saban\u2019s strategy to stay at number one that I think we can all learn from.

It all begins with recruiting.

In our channel, partner recruitment is an on-going process.\xa0 Master agents want partners to sell through their contracts, and recruit based on their relationships with providers and what they can do for the partner that other masters can\u2019t.\xa0 Providers recruit partners to sell services in preference to those of their competitors.\xa0 So, what can we learn from arguably one of the most successful college football coaches of all time about recruiting?

Saban\u2019s recruiting coaches are taught to have a conversation that goes somewhat like this, \u201cThis is who we are. This is what we do. This is what we\u2019ve done. This is what we feel like we can do for you. This is what we feel like you can do for us. If you want to be a part of it, great. If you don\u2019t, somebody else will.'\u201d\xa0 Imagine the clarity that gives a partner to know what your program can do for them, but what you expect in return.

Saban never waits for players to come to him, he finds those hidden gems, recruits year-around, and knows he faces stiff competition from the likes of LSU, Georgia or Clemson.\xa0 That lesson should translate to partner recruiting.\xa0 You have to go out and find partners proactively and not depend exclusively on passive ways to get them to notice you.\xa0 Advertise, offer incentives, host lunch and learns, be at regional meetings in order to find partners you want to work with.\xa0

Next, perfect \u201cthe process\u201d.

Simply put, Saban shares that \u201cThe Process\u201d is maintaining a relentless focus on things that we can control.\xa0 It also means not being distracted by the opponent\u2019s perceived strengths or the score, but rather do your job so that you can contribute what you have control over.\xa0 How many times in your channel job have you gotten distracted over your development team missing a product release date, the reorganization that you think is coming to realign resources, or an install that is taking too long on that final circuit?\xa0 Saban teaches his team that they are responsible for what they create, not what the other team has going on that they can\u2019t control.

Saban also breaks his process down into smaller parts so each routine is understandable, manageable and measurable.\xa0 We develop software at Convey.\xa0 No task takes our developers manage takes more than a day or two and each new feature is compiled of many smaller tasks that we can manage and measure to keep us on track.\xa0 Those of us managing complex sales processes, commissions, installations or other processes in the channel should take a lesson from Saban\u2019s playbook to take a big process, break it into its component parts then track and measure it.

Use technology to gain a competitive edge.

I was astounded to learn that Saban focused hard on&