Greg Kish, Vice President Sales & Service with Legends at LA Stadium & Entertainment District at Hollywood Park
Q: Tell us about the work you do with Legends
A: Legends has been fortunate enough to partner on the most ambitious projects in the history of sports and entertainment. My role is being a steward of iconic brands to delivering on all revenue streams and ensure the financial success of the project. With that said, the most rewarding part is the opportunity to build a team of people and a culture that will have a lasting impact for our partners.
Q: How long have you worked with Lance Tyson?
A: I’ve known Lance Tyson for 10-11 years, and my experience working with him has helped me to increase my confidence and excel in my career. I was first exposed to Lance at the age of 23 as a brand new sales person at the Dallas Cowboys, and I walked away from his training with a whole new way of looking at my job. I later worked with him as a Manager at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. I’ve been through at least 10 trainings with Lance, on everything from sales, management, training, hiring and recruiting.
Q: What makes Lance Tyson different from other sales trainers?
A: Lance Tyson does a great job of providing impactful training. He makes the material digestible and relatable. He doesn’t just tell people, “Do as I say,” he actually takes the next step of saying, “Look what I can do with it.” Lance is the kind of guy who will pick up the phone on the spot and make a cold call to demonstrate to the team how to put his advice into action. He puts people into situations that help them to assimilate what they’ve learned, either through a mnemonic device, or through relatable anecdotes that help to retain the info. There are lots of nuances in Lance’s training that help people to adjust on-the-fly to what’s happening in a sales dialogue.
Q: How has 1Huddle’s mobile gamification app helped to reinforce Tyson Group’s instructor-led sales training?
A: We’ve found that people retain the information they learn in Tyson Group’s instructor-led training much better with the use of 1Huddle’s mobile app. 1Huddle helps to reinforce sales training, by capturing some of the goodness that Lance has to offer. Hearing Lance speak can be mesmerizing, and people always leave the training fired up. The 1Huddle app helps to recreate that experience after the fact – it’s like having the ability to hit a refresh button every time you need it.
Lance lives on through the 1Huddle app. Not only does it serve as a record of what Lance said, it also helps to bottle his secret sauce by reminding us about some of the nuances and anecdotes, and allowing us to release them at the right time throughout the project. We also use 1Huddle to help expedite the onboarding process, and to provide continuous learning and development throughout a project.
Q: Can you offer a specific example?
A: Part of Tyson Group’s sales training addresses how to handle objections. Some sales reps are just intuitively good at handling objections, but for many others, it can be intimidating, so it helps to have a process in place. We created an “objections game” based on Lance’s model in the 1Huddle app. It helps our reps practice techniques like extracting objections, clarifying issues, finding points of agreement, removing obstacles, and navigating around them. The game makes it easy and fun, and it gives young sales reps the confidence to try out some of the techniques. It reinforces the learning on a continual basis.
Another example is with regard to product knowledge. Tyson Group always asserts in training that sales reps need to be experts when it comes to their own product, and know everything about it, backward and forward. They shouldn’t go into conversations with prospects if they are still struggling with product knowledge. We’ve found that product training becomes way more effective when we reinforce it with 1Huddle’s mobile app. The game makes learning product specifics fast and fun, and there’s also an element of healthy competition that appeals to our reps.
Q: Can you provide any success metrics to illustrate how Tyson Group and 1Huddle have helped improve campaign outcomes?
A: Specific numbers are difficult to provide because we often don’t have a baseline to compare the results to. Tyson Group is usually brought in at the beginning of a campaign, but sometimes it happens in the middle, and the project is already underway. I can tell you that we’ve utilized Lance at every organization I’ve worked with, and that all of those organizations experience some uplift in sales. Legends has hired him to train teams in Dallas, Santa Clara, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and more. Lance sets the tone for the entire campaign – he makes people feel competent, confident, and ready. Without his involvement, none of our campaigns would be as successful.
Q: Can you offer any advice to others who want to get more out of their sales training?
A: Lay the foundation by hiring a highly impactful trainer like Lance Tyson, then support it afterward with a technology platform that can be highly customized for each specific client or campaign. Make sure that the training is absorbed and retained by providing a way for the sales reps to refresh their knowledge throughout the campaign.
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