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The art of Winning
Graham Duxbury runs a successful business. He also competes in car rallies around the world and during the late 1970s and 1980s, he was a world-renowned motor racing driver. It goes without saying that the man is competitive and that is precisely the word he uses to describe his attitude towards business, racing and life in general. It is also what he looks for when it comes to salespeople.
Getting things done
To Duxbury, there is a big difference between intentions and action. Ask him to describe himself in a single word, and his response is: competitive. "That is where it all starts. I believe you have to be competitive and by so being, you hopefully end up not just having good intentions, but have actions. There is an enormous number of people who have the greatest intentions and who want to make a lot of money, but are they prepared to do anything about that?" he says.
"It is very simple: intention is a great thing in the pub, but action is what you do during the day. I think if you add competitiveness, you get a winning formula," he says.
In that, Duxbury speaks not of skills but of the desire to win. "All businesses have those people who have the greatest set of skills but lack a passion for action. There are also less skilled people who have tremendous drive. That second group are the people who move a business forward, not the first group."
Want to race? First, learn how to sell
Getting involved in motor racing requires substantially more than driving talent. Though that is clearly important, you don’t get on the track in the first place without finance. And gathering finance demands a sound business head – and the ability to sell often vague concepts. Today, Duxbury is the sort of guy who can get a sponsored Porsche Cayenne Turbo to race from London to Sydney, but in the early days, things were markedly different. "I had to go out and sell myself and my abilities in the most literal sense of the word. I went to the big sports management companies, but when you are a young, up-and-coming driver, your value to a sponsor is very low. They are not going to invest the time in you, so you have to do it yourself. And I mean literally, you make a call, you get an appointment and – because this was before there were PCs – every proposal was hand typed and I would draw a picture of the car and colour it in with coloured pencils, so that the potential sponsor could see what the car would look like with their logo on it," he says.
Understanding your role
Critical to success in any business endeavour, and especially in sales, is a clear and unambiguous understanding of what the requirement is. To Duxbury, sports people who are not able to see their sport as a business, are likely to struggle with success. Sure, making a TV commercial, or sitting in a press conference in a suit and tie is a far cry from competing in their sport. But sports isn’t how they make their money. Sales is. Their performance on the racing track, the tennis court, or the soccer field is what enables them to be saleable, but their corporate personality is what sponsors care about most.
"Think about that for a moment. If a driver is not a business person first and foremost, it is unlikely they are ever going to be a top-level driver. Because they are corporate employees, hired by Ferrari or Honda or BMW, and those companies are never going to hire someone who may sully their reputation," he says.
"It is the same in sales. Being able to close deals is like being able to drive fast. It is highly desirable. But your ability to get hired is going to rest as heavily on your potential appeal to the broadest number of customers. You have to look and act the part."
Be receptive to ideas
When Duxbury arrived back in South Africa in 1981 after a season of racing in England, he drove down to East London to visit the home of former racing driver Ian Scheckter – brother of the Formula One World Champion Jody Sheckter. During the drive through the Karoo, he made two decisions that would shape his fate: the first was that no matter what career he ultimately ended up pursuing, he would forever remain in Africa; the second was that he would double his income over the following twelve months. "That second decision came about, having witnessed the immense wealth that existed in the motor racing field in Europe, and realising that it really was possible to achieve great wealth. I wasn’t sure at the time how I was going to go about that, but I made the decision anyway. And when you make decisions like that, it opens your mind and you begin to see things. You begin to be receptive to suggestions you might not otherwise consider," he says.
Just such a suggestion presented itself to him that year, and he formed a partnership that would ultimately become Duxbury Networking, a distributor of networking equipment.
Set goals and strive for them
"You have to have medium-term goals and then ultimate long-term goals," says Duxbury. "And you have to really stretch yourself. I said in 1981 that I wanted to double my income that year. That was what I wanted then. But that isn’t where I am today. That is only what I wanted to do during that one year time frame. I have an umbrella of things that I want to do which have nothing to do with what I want to do this year."
That thinking has interesting ramifications in the short term however. Since all focused intentions go towards the achievement of goals, Duxbury applies his thinking to his company’s monthly sales numbers "During the month, we have targets and expectations. And then occasionally a big order will come in which is unexpected, and which pushes us over target early. But as far as I’m concerned we weren’t expecting that deal and we had to make our numbers without it, so we still need to make the same numbers anyway. I would feel cheated if a bluebird came in and we still only made target."
Understanding strengths and weaknesses
Salespeople need to understand their strengths and weaknesses, according to Duxbury, and that philosophy plays itself out at the very core of his business. When the company was formed in 1981, his partner made it clear up front that the partnership should be 50/50 but that he wouldn’t contribute in terms of paperwork, finance, or management. His contribution would be technical; a field in which he felt highly competent. "To do that, you have to be very confident in the value you are able to offer. To the wrong set of ears, you are saying that your value is limited, but to the right ears, you are making an important and useful statement. You need to recognise peoples’ strengths and weaknesses if they are going to be used to the best of their abilities," he says.
"You can be the most fantastic salesperson and yet be terrible at paperwork. If that is your reality, then your value is out selling, not wasting time unproductively doing paperwork, so tell them to get you a secretary. If a secretary helps you to achieve brilliantly, even if it adds to the cost, it might be the right decision. The alternative is that they look at the mess you’re in and think you’re no good even though your figures might be excellent. The closer you can get to recognising your strengths and weaknesses, the more successful you will be."
On Money
How do salespeople view money? Of course it is an important reward for a job well done, but an observation of his own top performers’ behaviour leads Duxbury to the clear conclusion that it isn’t priority number one. Not for the top guys. For the top guys, it is beating the competition and being number one. "Let me tell you, when the sales figures hit their desks at 8:30am every morning, the first thing these guys look at are the other people’s figures. The competition may be external, but it is internal too. They want to be top of the pile and they are in a very serious competition with their peers as to how much they can bring into the company. Now, ultimately that is clearly going to have a very pleasant effect on their back pocket. But actually the money does not appear to be the first prize for the real performers," he says.
"And it is that competitive spirit again. They hate losing a deal and to them, it doesn’t matter whether it was worth R100,000 or R1 million – the money isn’t what is important. What counts is winning or losing. If you don’t have that passion, if you don’t have that spark, you aren’t going to be a great salesperson."
Racing milestones
Duxbury has raced both locally and internationally, competing in some of the biggest events on the motor racing calendar. The reason? He wanted to. How did he go about making it happen? He chose to apply his enormous drive and competitive spirit to achieving those goals. In Duxbury-speak, when you do that, the rest is almost a done deal.
For six years, Duxbury was also the South African representative to the FIA for touring cars – the FIA being the world motor racing governing body which oversees such events as the Formula One World Championship. During that time, Duxbury ran the Touring Car Championship.
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