The Win Behind the Win

A few years ago I shared six lessons I carried from the football field at Syracuse and with the New Orleans Saints into a career in sales.

I started out knocking doors selling roofs and windows. Twelve years later, I've led revenue teams in SaaS and today I lead growth for a procurement intelligence business.

I played offensive line. My whole job was to protect the quarterback so he could make the play. The crowd cheered for him, never for me. That job taught me more about sales than anything else.

When I reread that piece, the principles still held. What changed is the field we play on. AI is rewriting how reps research, prospect and follow up. Every team I talk to is in the middle of change management. People are being upskilled into roles that didn't exist two years ago. And deals are taking longer to close, with more stakeholders at the table and more scrutiny on every dollar.

That combination rewards one thing more than ever: grit paired with a thought leader's mentality. Tools are available to everyone now. How you prepare, lead and respond is still yours alone. Here's the playbook, rebuilt for the season we're actually in. Along the way, I'll share the moments that taught me why it works, from a front door in Massachusetts to leading a revenue team.

Lou Alexander in a navy number 77 jersey on the sideline — Number 77 at Syracuse. The habits from the field still run my week.

The playbook at a glance

Each play feeds the next. The film tells you what to delegate and develop, and every long season sends you back to preparation.

The journey · Part 1

The door

Power Home Remodeling Group
Door-to-door sales, Massachusetts

My sales career started at Power Home Remodeling Group, knocking on doors. I was green. I didn't have a playbook. I had a natural ability to hold a conversation and not much else.

Getting a yes at someone's front door takes humility, and a kind of awareness a B2B sale doesn't teach you. I learned fast that the value wasn't the free estimate I was offering, and it wasn't the windows or the roof. The value was whether I could build enough trust in those first few minutes for someone to let a stranger into their home and sit down to talk about their options.

There was no preparing for a door. I never knew who would answer or what kind of day they'd had. I could meet every personality type in a single afternoon. All I could do was read the person in front of me, and be selfless enough to serve them in a way that was for their benefit, not for the benefit of a transaction.

Standing in the snow in Massachusetts at 5:30 on a Wednesday evening will humble just about anyone.

What it taught me

Read the person before you pitch the product. Trust comes before the transaction. That's where reading the front started for me. Years later, B2B taught me the other half: preparation.

Play 01 · Preparation

Prepare like it's game week

Preparation is still the price of adding value. If you didn't study the opponent, you have nothing to bring to the meeting. That was true in 2022 and it's truer now, because the buyer has done their homework too.

What's new is how fast you can scout. AI can pull together an account's priorities, its industry pressures and its likely objections in minutes. Use it. Then do the part it can't: rehearse. Have AI play the skeptical CFO or the procurement lead who's already talking to two competitors. Run the objections out loud until your answers are clean.

The trap is confusing research with preparation. A summary isn't a game plan. The rep who wins is the one who turns that intel into a point of view the buyer hasn't heard yet.

Run the playThe 48-hour game plan before a big meeting

Step	What you do	How AI helps	You're ready when
1Scout	Pull the account's priorities, recent news and industry pressures	Summarizes filings, press and their market in minutes	You can name their top 3 priorities without notes
2Map the room	List every stakeholder, their role and what they care about	Drafts a stakeholder map from LinkedIn and past notes	Each person has a "why they'd say yes" line
3Point of view	Write one insight they haven't heard yet	Pressure-tests your angle and finds holes	It fits in two sentences
4Scrimmage	Roleplay the toughest buyer and top 5 objections	Plays the skeptical CFO or procurement lead	Your answers are clean out loud, twice
5Call sheet	Agenda, the one ask, and the next step you'll propose	Drafts the agenda and pre-read	The close of the meeting is planned before it starts

The journey · Part 2

The whiteboard

From player to manager
to head of revenue

When I moved into management, I learned that a method only works if it leaves your head. If it stays in your thoughts and never becomes a written process or playbook, nobody else can run it.

When I was playing ball, our coach, Greg Adkins, would challenge us to go up to the whiteboard and draw up the protection. It showed whether we were prepared for the opponent. It also showed whether we actually knew our assignment, or were planning to let athleticism cover for what we didn't know.

Execution started on the whiteboard. The field was where it got proven.

That lesson came back hard when I became a head of revenue. My boss didn't need to hear that I was good on the phone. They needed to see my process. I had to answer questions like these:

The questions I had to answer

Can I write out my sales process clearly enough that someone else could run it?
Are our sales velocity and our forecast telling the same story?
Do our reps have the resources they need to perform?
Have we given our reps the ability to write out the process themselves?

There were times I couldn't answer those well. I failed at some of them. But once you see the gap, everything changes. Your ability to scale and close deals isn't about how good you are on the phone. It's about how well you can walk your client through the process.

What it taught me

If you can't draw it on the whiteboard, you don't own it. That's why PROTECT is written down, and why every rep in the Read the Front curriculum draws up their deal before they play it.

News clipping from April 29, 2013: Former Syracuse offensive lineman Lou Alexander headed to the New Orleans Saints as undrafted free agent — April 29, 2013 · Syracuse to the Saints

Protect, and you'll win and reach the goal.

It's bigger than football, but football is where I learned the model. Everything that follows started here.

Source: "Former Syracuse offensive lineman Lou Alexander headed to the New Orleans Saints as undrafted free agent," syracuse.com, April 29, 2013

Read the Front · The RTF Selling method

PROTECTReading the front seven

Seven things to know about any deal before you commit to it.

PPain
RRoles
OObstacles
TTiming
EEconomics
CChampion
TTraction

Before every snap, a lineman reads the front: the seven defenders across from him, where the blitz is coming from, and who he has to block. Get the read wrong and the quarterback gets hit. Get it right and the play has a chance.

Deals work the same way. PROTECT is my method for reading the front of any deal before you commit your time, your forecast or your team to it. It complements MEDDPICC rather than replacing it, and it adds the two things I see deals die on most: timing and traction.

Pain

The real business problem, in their numbers, not yours.

If they can't put a cost on it, it isn't a priority yet.

Questions to ask

What made this a priority now, and not six months ago?
How are you measuring this today? What is it costing you each quarter?
What happens if nothing changes over the next 12 months?
Who else feels this problem, and how does it show up for them?
What have you already tried, and why didn't it stick?

Red flagThey describe the pain in your product's language, or nobody can put a number on it.

Roles

Who's in the box. Map the buying committee before the snap.

Every deal has more players than the person you're talking to.

Role	What they do	How to spot them
Economic buyer	Owns the budget and can say yes without asking anyone	Others defer to them when cost comes up
Decision makers	Choose between the options	They run the evaluation and set the criteria
Champion	Sells for you when you're not in the room	They act on your behalf (see C)
Influencers	Shape the requirements: IT, finance, end users	They ask the detailed questions in demos
Gatekeepers	Procurement, legal, security	They show up late with forms and reviews
Blockers	Gain from the status quo or a competitor	Quiet, skeptical or missing from meetings

How to find who really has authority

Ask about the last decision. "Walk me through how a purchase like this got approved last time. Who signed off?"
Ask about the money. "Who can approve this spend without needing anyone else's sign-off?"
Test it. Ask your champion to bring that person into the next meeting. If they can't or won't, you haven't found the authority, or you haven't found your champion.
Confirm it directly. "What would you need to see to approve this?"

Questions to ask

Besides you, who will be involved in this decision?
Who will this change affect most day to day?
Who could stop this, even if everyone else is in favor?

Red flagYou've only ever talked to one person, or they plan to "take it to leadership" without you.

Obstacles

The blitz coming. Status quo, a competitor, procurement, legal.

Name each one before it hits you.

Questions to ask

What could get in the way of this, even if you love it?
Who else are you looking at, including doing nothing?
What does procurement and legal review look like here, and how long does it usually take?
Has a project like this stalled before? What happened?

Red flag"We don't see any obstacles." There's always a blitz. If you can't see it, it's coming from where you aren't looking.

Timing

The snap count. What event forces a decision, and by when?

A date without a reason behind it is a wish.

Questions to ask

What's driving the timeline? Is there a date that matters to the business?
What happens if this slips a quarter?
When does the budget for this need to be committed?
Working back from when you need this live, when do we need an agreement signed?

Red flag"Sometime this year." No event means no urgency, and no urgency means no deal.

Economics

Budget, ROI and who actually signs.

The business case has to work for their finance team, not just for you.

Questions to ask

Is there budget set aside for this, or does it need to be found?
How will you measure whether this paid off?
What return would make this an easy yes for finance?
Who signs the contract, and what do they need to see first?

Red flagROI that only you have calculated. Build it with them, in their numbers.

Champion

Who's blocking for you inside the account.

A champion has influence, has something to gain, and acts for you when you're not in the room.

How to test oneAsk them to do something: share an internal document, set up a meeting with the economic buyer, or walk you through the approval process. A fan agrees with you. A champion takes action for you.

Questions to ask

What's in this for you if it succeeds?
How would you sell this internally if I weren't there?
Who will push back, and how should we handle them?

Red flagThey're friendly, but they never do anything you ask.

Traction

A committed next step on both sides, not just "we'll circle back."

Every meeting ends with a date, an owner and an action on both sides.

Questions to ask

What's the next step on your side, and when will it be done?
Can we put the next conversation on the calendar now?
What do you need from me before then?

Red flagEvery next step is yours. If they aren't doing any work, the deal isn't moving.

Score the front

Rate every open deal on all seven letters: 0 if you don't know, 1 if it's partly confirmed, 2 if it's confirmed by the buyer. The letter you can't fill in is where the deal will get hit.

12–14A clean readCommit it to the forecast.

8–11Gaps in the protectionFix the weakest letter before the next meeting.

Under 8You haven't read the frontGo back to discovery before you spend more time.

Play 02 · Self-scouting

Know your strengths, and look at the film

When I left football, the first question I asked was simple: what am I really good at? The answer was coaching. I could bring the best out of the people next to me. That told me where to go, from door-to-door sales to leading teams.

That self-honesty matters more now, because the job is shifting under people's feet. Some of what made a rep great five years ago, like grinding through manual research, is being automated. What's rising in value is judgment, storytelling, business acumen and the ability to build trust with a room full of stakeholders.

So watch the film. Call recordings, pipeline data and win-loss notes will tell you the truth faster than your gut will. Find where deals actually stall. Then double down on what you do best, and get honest about the gaps the market is now exposing.

Run the playThe quarterly film session

Step	What you do	Where to look	You're done when
1Pull the tape	Gather 5 won and 5 lost deals from the last quarter	Call recordings, CRM history, win-loss notes	Every deal has its recordings and notes in one place
2Stall points	Mark the stage where each lost deal slowed or died	Stage dates in the pipeline	You can name the 1 or 2 stages where you lose most
3Grade yourself	Score discovery, storytelling, business acumen and multi-threading from 1 to 5	AI call analysis, plus your manager's read	Your top strength and biggest gap are written down
4Pick your reps	Choose one strength to sharpen and one gap to close	Your development plan (see play 05)	Both have a practice drill attached
5Re-watch	Run the same review next quarter and compare	The same sources	You can see the gap closing in the numbers

Play 03 · Delegation

Delegate like a lineman

I wasn't the quarterback. My job was to be selfless and protect the guy who could throw the ball downfield. Delegation was never a sign of weakness on that field. It was the strategy.

Lou Alexander, number 77, blocking a pass rusher while his quarterback sets up to throw — My job on every snap: protect the quarterback so he can make the throw. Great delegation works the same way.

Today you have a new teammate to delegate to. AI can take first drafts, meeting notes, CRM updates, account research and follow-up sequences off your plate. Every hour it gives back is an hour you can spend where people still win deals: discovery calls, executive conversations, negotiation and coaching.

The rule I give my teams is simple. Hand off the work, not the relationship. Let AI handle the volume. Keep the judgment, the trust and the hard conversations for yourself. And as a leader, delegate to your people the same way, by putting each player where their skills can score.

Hand off the work, not the relationship.

Run the playThe delegation depth chart

Task	Hand it to AI	Keep it human	Why
Account research	First pass on priorities, news, org chart	Deciding which angle to lead with	Volume vs. judgment
Prospecting	Drafts and personalization at scale	Final read and your own voice on top targets	Trust is earned in the first line
Notes and CRM	Transcribe, summarize, log next steps	Confirming what the buyer actually committed to	Notes are data, commitments are relationships
Follow-up	Timing, reminders, first drafts	What new value each touch brings	No one replies to "just checking in"
Discovery and negotiation	Prep and roleplay only	The live conversation, every time	This is where deals are won
Forecasting	Flag risk signals and stalled deals	The call on what's real	Leaders own the number

Start small. Pick the two tasks that eat the most of your week, hand them off for 30 days, and track what you do with the time you get back.

AI takes the volume. You take the moments that win deals.

At every stage, AI does the prep work and hands off. The rep owns the moment where trust gets built.

AI handlesYou handle

Play 04 · Change management

Trust your captains to carry the change

Every team has a captain. They lead by example and they're the voice of the players. The coach designs the playbook from the sideline, but the captain is the one on the field making it work. When the captain is speaking, the coach should be quiet.

This is the most underrated lever in change management. When a company rolls out new AI tools or a new sales motion, reps don't adopt it because leadership sent a memo. They adopt it when a respected peer shows them it works. That captain might be a senior AE, an SDR lead or someone in customer success. Title doesn't matter. Trust does.

Find your captains early. Bring them into the pilot, let them shape how the tools get used, and let them carry the message. Change that comes from the locker room sticks. Change that comes only from the front office gets quietly ignored.

Change sticks when captains carry it

Picking the right captains is the move everything else depends on. Once you scale, their feedback keeps reshaping how the team uses the tool.

Run the playA captain-led rollout

Step	What you do	Who owns it	Ready to move on when
1Pick captains	Choose 2 or 3 reps peers already go to for help, across roles	Sales leader	Each captain says yes and knows why they were picked
2Run the pilot	Captains use the new tool or motion on live deals	Captains	They have real wins and real complaints to share
3Shape it	Captains rewrite the how-to in the team's language	Captains, with enablement	The playbook sounds like the team, not the vendor
4Huddle	Captains demo it at team meetings; leaders stay quiet	Captains	Reps ask to try it
5Scale and listen	Roll out to everyone, with captains as first line of support	Sales leader and captains	Adoption holds after 30 days and feedback keeps coming

Play 05 · Upskilling

Treat upskilling like training camp

Nobody makes the NFL overnight, and nobody starts at the top. Athletes start with development, and they never stop. Sales has always under-invested here. Right now that gap is getting expensive.

The skills that win are changing quickly. Reps need to know how to work alongside AI, read data, speak the language of finance and operations, and lead a buying committee instead of a single champion. Leaders need to coach those skills on purpose, not hope people pick them up.

Build a real camp. Set a development plan for each person, with one or two skills to sharpen each quarter. Roleplay the tough calls. Share what's working across the team. And keep training your strengths as hard as your weaknesses. Your edge is still what makes you different.

Run the playThe quarterly training camp

Week	Focus	Drill	Measure
Wk 1	Set the plan	Each rep picks one strength and one gap from their film session	Plan written and shared with their manager
Wk 2–4	Work with AI	Use AI for research and drafts on every deal; share one prompt that worked	Hours saved per week, self-reported
Wk 5–7	Business acumen	Learn to read a P&L and talk cost, risk and ROI with finance	Rep can explain a buyer's business case in their numbers
Wk 8–10	Buying committees	Roleplay a 4-person buying group with mixed agendas	More contacts engaged per open deal
Wk 11–12	Show and tell	Each rep presents a deal where the new skill made a difference	One story per rep, shared with the whole team

Repeat every quarter with new focus areas. Development isn't an event. It's the season.

Play 06 · Emotional intelligence

Bring grit to a longer season

I've always told my teams to never get too high or too low. Overconfidence closes your mind. Getting too down after a loss makes you stop trusting your process. Emotional intelligence is what keeps you steady in between.

Longer sales cycles test that like nothing else. Deals that used to close in a quarter now stretch across two or three. More people weigh in, budgets get re-examined, and a deal can go quiet for weeks. That's where grit separates people. You keep adding value when nobody is giving you a reason to.

This is also where thought leadership earns its keep. In a long cycle, you're not just following up. You're teaching. Share what you're seeing in their market, bring a fresh angle to every touch, and become the person the buying committee trusts to make sense of the noise.

When someone tells you no, or not yet: how do we respond?

Run the playStaying in the game through a long cycle

When	Move	What it sounds like	Why it works
Deal goes quiet	Send an insight, not a check-in	Saw this shift in your market. Here's what it could mean for your Q2 plan.	Gives them a reason to reply
New stakeholder	Meet them early, on their priorities	What would make this a win for your team?	One new skeptic can stall a whole deal
Budget review	Rebuild the business case with your champion	Their numbers, their language, their risk	Arms your champion for the room you're not in
"Not yet"	Agree on a specific next step and date	Let's put 20 minutes on the calendar for after your planning cycle.	Keeps the deal on a calendar, not in limbo
After a loss	Ask for a debrief, then reset	What would have made the difference?	Never too high, never too low, always learning

Keep yourself steady, too. Track the activities you control each week, like insights sent and new contacts met, not just closed deals. A long season is won by the reps who stay consistent while the scoreboard is quiet.

The journey · Part 3

Game day

First time as a
front-line manager

Game day is where it all comes together, but it's won at practice. Every day, I went to practice envisioning the opponent. Am I fast enough to get to his outside shoulder on a zone block? When I'm double-teaming a defensive tackle with my guard, can I release to the second level and block the linebacker?

That same kind of preparation happens at the leadership level.

The first time I became a front-line manager, I was extremely nervous. I knew my strengths. I could get people to follow me, and I could lead and motivate them. Those qualities came naturally. The scary part was whether my team would believe in my process and feel secure enough to put it to work.

The rubber met the road when one of my most senior reps, Mike, called and asked me to go over a deal with him. We spent at least an hour on potential red flags.

What we covered for an hour

Was there an established buying commitment?
What was the budget timeline?
Were there competitors in the deal?

Then I asked him one question that changed his perspective for good:

"Mike, what are the chances the client says no because you don't understand him as a person, and the goals he's committed to?"

Just like the opponents I played, the buyer has a game plan too. If I only commit to my outcome and my benefits, I forget that the other side has goals of their own. When I don't take the time to understand those goals, that's what leads to a loss.

What it taught me

Read their goals as closely as your own. The other side has a game plan too, and the deal is won by the seller who understands it.

Lou Alexander celebrating on the field, pointing to the crowd — Nobody wins alone.

The whole team shares the win

AI will keep getting better. The tools your competitors use will look a lot like yours. What won't be copied is a team that prepares harder, knows itself honestly, delegates smartly, trusts its captains, keeps developing and stays steady through a long season.

That's the athlete's mindset. And when it works, nobody wins alone. Sales, marketing, success and ops all share in every close, the same way the offensive line shares in every touchdown.

Nobody cheers for the lineman. But every touchdown starts with one.

That's the win behind the win.

Your first playIf you're leading a team through this shift, start this week. Pick one play, put it in front of your team on Monday, and measure what changes by the end of the quarter. I'd love to hear which one you start with, so reach out directly.

This playbook is the foundation of Read the Front (RTF Selling), the sales coaching company I'm building around the PROTECT method. Find more at RTFselling.com.