In sales, we talk a lot about A, B, and C players, and that's a good way of characterizing

skillsetability, aptitude, much like school.

There's the A students, the ones who are either naturally smart or really work hard and

apply themselves, and there's the B students that they try, and they do pretty good as the

C students that sometimes just aren't a fit for school, speaking to one right now.

But then there's something above A players in sales, and I noticed early in my career

and I strived to become that person, and how do I characterize them?

They're always thinking outside the box.

They're not the boy scout, the good citizen, not that they're a bad citizen.

It's that they don't overwhelm themselves with the bureaucracy and the protocols and the

management directives.

They're good citizens, but they do what's right for the customer, and they create things.

And when I started to go out on my own, I go, what's a good name for that type of salesperson?

And the timing wasn't right, but the name I came up with was Maverick, but I happened

to have come up with it at the time.

It was the, I think, O8 or O9 election here in the U.S. and John McCain was running against Obama.

And McCain positioned himself as a Maverick, and all of a sudden it got lost in the political.

And that wasn't my intent.

It was just bad timing.

But I used the word Maverick because they were apart from the herd.

They weren't the leader of the herd.

They were so far apart that people came up with a different name for them.

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