Baseball, Golf & Selling

I’ve loved sports my whole life.

Historically, the sales profession has been chock full of those who played and often still play. I’ve known sales managers who specifically looked for those activities when hiring. They liked to see those who have competed, who’d handled both the “joy of winning” and “the agony of defeat”. (Remember The Wide World of Sports?)

Today, I want to talk about success in two sports and how it relates to our selling.

First sport: baseball.

Some say that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in any sport.

When you’re up to bat, you can’t control whether or not you get a hit. But, what you can control is having a good at-bat. What’s a good at-bat? It’s making a good swing when pitches are in your zone and laying off bad pitches that are out of your zone. Success, a high batting average, comes from having good at-bats.

What skills are needed to have good at-bats? You need both a powerful swing & a “good eye”. Powerful swings require a balanced stance, weight shift and bat speed. A “good eye” comes from being able to instantly detect velocity and spin.

Each one of those skills can be developed and innovative coaches are paid a lot of money to help. The best ones simplify things as much as possible and help their students (hitters) master those key aspects of hitting with drills and exercises.  

Back to our profession. How do you simplify selling? What are the key aspects that determine selling success for you in your market? And, are you doing exercises to build those particular skills up?

Here’s an example: Selling doesn’t get any more simple than satisfying a need or want. But since competitors are trying to do the same thing, in order to win we need to find pain where we have a differentiated solution. Plus, prospects usually have multiple projects competing for limited investment dollars.

So our questioning needs to:

(1.) focus on finding pain, specifically in areas of differentiation, and

(2.) the impact of that pain going unresolved has to be sufficient to position us as the most investable project. There are multiple exercises, drills, and role-plays you can do to really hone those skills.

Second sport: golf.

At the highest levels in golf, the players all have great swings. It’s the mental game that separates the best from the rest. The best know how to calm their nerves so they can execute good shots under pressure.

Before hitting a shot, the best golfers don’t think about what might go wrong. They don’t overthink it. They calm themselves by executing their pre-shot routine.

For many, their pre-shot routine is to look at their yardage book, toss some grass in the air to check the wind, select their club, pick their target, decide what kind of swing is needed and take practice swings for that upcoming shot.

These are all things they can control. They can’t really control the outcome (just like the baseball player can’t control whether their swing will end in a base hit). But, the great golfer knows they have a better chance of making a good swing under pressure if they’re relaxed. The relaxation comes from the pre-shot routine. They trust it and learn to accept whatever the result is.

Back to selling. Do you control what you can control? Do you have a “pre-shot routine” before important calls, meetings and presentations? (Pre-shot routines are really just mini step-by-step systems). Do you expect a positive outcome, knowing your probability of success goes up when you do the right things?

Let’s use an onsite presentation as an example. Up to this point: You’ve created a custom presentation for this audience. You’ve rehearsed it. You’ve created a “safety net” sheet, which lists a handful of key points you want to make and is there in case something goes wrong with the equipment or you have a brain cramp during delivery.

Now it’s 45 minutes before you’re on. You rapidly scan your slides and recall the main message for that slide. You picture the audience smiling and leaning in. You then clear your mind and relieve nervousness by taking a walk. You get in the room 15 minutes ahead of time, ensure everything is set up, and greet early arrivers.

As pro salespeople, we can do like the best pro athletes do.

(1.) Keep it simple by maximizing effort in those skills that have the most impact, and

(2.) Reduce pressure by executing reliable systems (aka pre-shot routines).

Have a great week!

Bob

P.S. If you’re interested in taking your sales game to the next level, we have custom coaching packages, value priced for our subscribers. Contact me at [email protected] for details.

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