In this episode of In-Sights, Lance Tyson breaks down one of the core principles behind high-performance selling: selling is an away game. Most salespeople prepare as if the game is played on their terms. But the truth is, every deal is won or lost on the buyer’s field — their needs, their environment, their rules, and their buying process. Lance unpacks what it really means to step into the buyer’s world, how top sellers adapt their approach, and why mastering the “away game” mindset leads to more trust, stronger conversations, and better outcomes.
👉If you’re looking to elevate your selling strategy, shift your perspective, and compete where the decision actually happens, this episode is a must-listen.
Check out Tyson Group’s Open Enrollment Programs: https://www.tysongroup.com/openenrollment
Check out Lance’s Bestseller Books:
The Human Sales Factor – https://tysongroup.com/books#thehumansalesfactor
Selling is an Away Game – https://tysongroup.com/books#sellingisanawaygame
Download our playbooks: https://www.tysongroup.com/sales-playbooks
Schedule a call with one of Tyson Group’s member: https://bit.ly/41YJW7K
Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://tysongroup.com/#weeklynewsletter
Follow Lance across Social Media:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lancetyson/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lance_tyson_1/
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.tysongroup.com/podcast
🎧 Tune in as Lance shares the mindset, behaviors, and tactics that separate average reps from elite performers.
—
Listen to the podcast here
In-Sights: Selling Is An Away Game
I would definitely write this down. I am not an email marketer. Yes, not. I would not even argue with one bit that your buyers ask you to send stuff all the time to them. Your first sale is the sale of time. Your KPI is to present. Abe’s comment about Norman was like, “Look, you have a place to sell. You have a beautiful building to sell to, and that visual’s there.”
If you can’t convince somebody to take 15, 20, 30, or 40 minutes of their time to meet with you, how are you ever going to sell them a dollar product? That’s the first sale, but you have to have ways that you do that. No pun intended. I promised Jennifer I would actually bring in another concept. My first book I ever wrote, was called Selling Is An Away Game.
Selling Is An Away Game
Does anybody here play sports? Would you prefer you played high school or college sports to play at home or would you prefer to play an away game? Why? You got home-field advantage or something. You know where the divots are on the field. You know where to bounce the basketball, where to hit the puck off the boards.
Our premise is that selling isn’t a way of the game. It ties back to something we talked about earlier, because it actually happens in the mindset of the buyer. The way the game happens in their mind. Your ability to engage the mind of buyer willingly. Now they’re profiled. You know who buys from you. You know what that profile is, or you have a few different IBO prospect profiles.
People who can afford it, like Abe said, maybe they’re writing a check, maybe there are other types of buyers that buy from you, but ultimately, you know who they are and what they’re about. Their ability to share with you their opinion, their thoughts, their agreements or disagreements allows you to advance the ball.
Does that make sense? Selling’s no way you can get into what happens to the milder buyer. I’m going to share some concepts from this that will give you a pathway, like a Waze or Google Map would. There’s not a lot new in sales processes. I would tell you the sales process that you follow. I’m a history major.
Selling only begins when you can get into the buyer’s mind.
The Original Sales Process
All my sons are history majors. I don’t know what that got us, but I am standing up on the stage giving business advice to do something new or something. I like studying business. The first sales process ever rolled out was the one that founded NCR, National Cash Register. That’s the sales process you all should follow.
Picture this. Some dude invents this giant machine that’s about this tall. You put your money in it, and then it calculates the ledger. Now imagine that happening in the late 1800s. You’re not going to advertise this monster machine in some catalog. I don’t even think the mail system was working that good at that time.
There’s no internet, there’s no phone. It was all show and tell. Think about this. You’re a salesperson for National Cash Register. Should you load this up in your horse’s buggy? You’re heading out to Walnut Grove to meet Mr. or Mrs. Ingalls. Nellie’s parents, who run the local, whatever you call that, the mercantile. They’re running a mercantile.
Don’t even call mercantiles. You’ve got to go in and open and say, “Do you spend a lot of time balancing your books? Are you always recounting your money?” Somebody would pull out a shotgun and go, “Why are you asking me about my money?” That’s the process you still follow. It was some kind of introduction, some presentation, some objections, and a close. You follow a very similar process. Nothing’s really changed.
A lot of people are throwing things and making side bets, but there’s really only one game happening. Everything else is just a side bet. That’s what sales really is.
We get leads a little bit quicker and stuff like that, but there are some parts of the process that we spend time with, like we talked about earlier, you would actually increase your odds, like you would on the casino floor, because we actually want you playing craps. Does anybody here play craps? See, look, I got one person who plays craps. Who plays sluts? Who goes with the slots? They’ll get all the hands now. Who plays poker?
Little poker, blackjack? Less. Not as many as craps or not the least amount of craps. See, the problem with craps, if you were up to the craft table, you’d sit there. I play craps, I don’t gamble a lot, I like odds, but I’ll gamble every once in a while. We do a lot of stuff in Vegas. I even have to spend a little time taking the game in for a moment because there’s a lot of action.
There’s so much action at the craps tables. I was with my brother one time at the ARIA in Vegas. He’s rolling his dice. He goes, “Mama needs a new pair of shoes.” I’m like, “Who? What is it? Where’d you get that?” He’s buying people free drinks and stuff like that. There is all kinds of stuff going on. A lot of action is going on.
The Craps Table Analogy (Action Vs. Game)
A lot of people are throwing things and making side bets. There’s really only one game going on. They’re all side bets. That’s really what sales is. There’s a lot of action going on right now. A lot of noise. You’re getting a lot of emails. You’re getting a lot of texts. You’re getting fragmented phone calls. You’re getting half information here, half information there. You end up presenting and dealing with things on different medium.
You’ve got to take the cruxes of what you do, they’re the intersections, and make sure you’re really disciplined in intersections. For instance, I was talking to Joel as a break. We got to spend a lot of time in maybe what you would call discovery or needs analysis. There are a lot of words for it. I go back to the Starbucks stuff. Let’s call it what they are. Language is important there. You get pulled in a lot of directions, and you’re distracted, so it becomes like a craps game. You need to understand the game to get your best odds.
Important Links
- Lance Tyson on LinkedIn
- Lance Tyson on Instagram
- Lance Tyson on X
- Subscribe to our Newsletter
- The Human Sales Factor
- Selling Is An Away Game
- Download our Playbooks
- Schedule a call with one of Tyson Group’s members
- Check out Tyson Group’s Open Enrollment Programs
