The Parallels Between Sales and Sports: Why Top Performers Think Like Athletes

[00:00:01] Welcome to Business, Finance and Soul. My name is Shaun Enders and I'm a curious entrepreneur. I love exploring business, personal finance and consciousness. I'll jump around topics, offer my opinions and occasionally interview interesting people. Looking forward to going on this journey. Let's be curious together.

[00:00:26] Hey, welcome back to Business, Finance and Soul. Thank you for joining me. I was off actually last week visiting family back East, specifically Boston. It was beautiful. It had snowed quite a bit and then was cold to where the snow stayed around. And it was just, I think almost every day, kind of bluebird skies and snow and being from Southern California or living here in Southern California for the last year.

[00:00:55] You know, two and a half decades. I love going to the snow. We had a we had a great time. I wanted to jump in today to talk about a topic that I actually bring up with my team quite a bit. And I draw parallels between sales and sport because there are so many times if you and you don't have to be an ex athlete to appreciate this. You just have to be someone who's really done anything competitively.

[00:01:25] Where you can. You can drop on the feel, you know, all the feels of the highs and lows that come with competition. You know, that really that that thrill of a win, the excitement that comes with it, the nervousness that comes with it, but also the flip side of that, the loss.

[00:01:46] And I think you've seen this before, I'm sure. But if you haven't think about a Hall of Fame baseball player throughout their career will strike out or get out and not get on base seven out of 10 times.

[00:02:03] So Hall of Fame, if you bat 300. That's an amazing career. So you got to think of the amount of losses and micro losses that happen just from a baseball player's perspective.

[00:02:18] That's one area I wanted to highlight because I go, yeah, that's resiliency right there. That's knowing this comes with the territory. And as I think about sales, I know that, you know, if you're going to have a career in this, you've got to have a natural ability to be optimistic.

[00:02:39] You have to find grit if you don't already have it. And you've got to build the resiliency muscle. I know that that happens. You know, you have to be disciplined. You have to have personal accountability. All of these areas are traits that that you really want to strengthen.

[00:03:00] And so as I look at this and I say, okay, yeah, if you're in athletics, if your kids are in athletics, it's all of the same things. It's a game, right? Sales is a game and where, you know, your skill mindset, it has to be focused on the long game.

[00:03:27] In the short-term wins and short-term losses, but the long game of where you're headed. You know, the more I observe high-performing sales professionals, it just cements this idea of where I see the parallels between top athletes and elite salespeople.

[00:03:47] So when I look at career opportunity in successful zip codes, you'll see entrepreneurs, you'll see legal professionals, lawyers, you'll see doctors, and guess what? You'll see high-level sales professionals.

[00:04:05] That's because the upside is uncapped. So the better you are in developing business, the better you are in creating long-term relationships that generate revenue for your company, the more valuable you are.

[00:04:21] And so there is a space for elite salespeople that are the best of the best. Both require, between athletes and salespeople, that grit that I discuss, both demand the ability to push through that failure that we discuss, and both reward those who are willing to play that long game.

[00:04:45] And so as we go through this, I want you to think about your own life. Think about where those parallels exist between what we've discussed on hard work and perseverance and pushing through. Are those traits that are important to you? If you're in sales, they better be important to you. But what about if you're not? You know, how does this actually apply to your own life?

[00:05:14] I think, number one, you know, the importance of personal accountability is something that is worth discussing because athletes know that success isn't just showing up for the game. And the game is what we see as fans, right?

[00:05:31] For them, it's about putting in the work when no one's watching. The hours spent training, lifting, running drills, refining techniques. That's what creates the game day success. And sales is no different. The best sales professionals really don't just perform when they're on calls or in meetings. They prepare. They research their prospects. Their work on their pitches. They're following up relentlessly.

[00:06:01] And when they don't at their numbers. You don't point fingers. You look into the mirror and you make the adjustments necessary. And in both sports and sales, your success is largely determined by what you do behind the scenes.

[00:06:16] My son, who's playing basketball, you know, we were talking about him missing shots at critical times. And I said, hey, I want you to Google Steph Curry or the late Kobe Bryant in terms of how many shots every day they took for free throws.

[00:06:40] How many shots that they took for 10 foot jumpers? What what do they do every day at the highest level? They're already pros. Presumably one would think that they don't need to do it anymore if they've made it. And my son looked it up and said that Steph Curry, you know, does, I think, 500 shots a day. And. We're thinking, yeah, that's his practice. That's somebody who already has multimillion dollar contracts.

[00:07:09] Already has a global brand and is still showing up doing that work when we're not looking. So when he's playing the Lakers, he hits the game winning shot for him. He's not surprised he's done that shot thousands and thousands of times. For us, it's a surprise because it seems just like, wow, so unnatural. But it's the work. It's the work.

[00:07:34] Top elite salespeople in whatever field they're in, the top one percent. They're not just showing up unplanned for their day, opening up their laptop and then randomly making calls. And, you know, I would hear people in sales. I would say, hey, you know, how's your day? And they would say, oh, just dial in for dollars. Like, oh, such a cringe worthy statement.

[00:07:57] You know, it's just such a low, low output statement in terms of what you think the job is and how you are preparing, how you see yourself, where the value is. Versus high level employees in sales say, yeah, it's going well. It's going to plan. I have a really robust call list. I'm excited for some of these prospects that I'm reaching out to.

[00:08:26] I've had some good conversations. And, you know, I've created a couple of valuable means that are going to happen next week. Big difference. And I've worked with both. It's really cool. Number two, we want to talk about resiliency. Really in the face of failure. Because in sports, as we know, you know, athletes experience failure. It is part of the game. It is just part of what happens from the time we're kids to adults.

[00:08:56] And, you know, I mentioned baseball players that, you know, are elite or batting 300 or more. You know, a quarterback who completes 60% of his passes is considered accurate. But he still misses nearly half his attempts. So it's telling, isn't it? You know, salespeople live in a world of rejection.

[00:09:22] A deal that seemed like a sure thing might fall apart. Right? A promising lead that was supposed to go somewhere goes silent. A competitor swoops in at the last minute. That ability to take the rejection, learn from it, and move forward without losing momentum is what separates the best from the rest. And I think that that's the key statement right there. How do you move forward without losing momentum?

[00:09:51] So, you don't go into a depressive state. You don't, you know, poor me. You get to be just like that athlete who misses a shot but keeps taking them. A salesperson can't afford to dwell on lost deals. That next opportunity is always ahead.

[00:10:10] I heard Tom Brady, after he threw a pick in a critical game, he had said, they said, you know, how do you go back out and throw that next ball into that tight window when the game was on the line? And, you know, after you had just thrown a pick on your last time out on the field.

[00:10:35] And he said, I just, you know, I have to focus on the now and have a short memory. And that's it. You really have to embrace the failure and know that it's part of the deal. Number three, the thrill of competition. Now, that's a big one because this is what salespeople love. They love the accolades. They also love the excitement.

[00:10:58] If you don't, it might not be worth it to be in sales because the best part of it is the upside, the excitement. Sports and sales people tend to be attracted to this line of competition because they love to compete. You know, it's the rush of chasing a goal, outworking an opponent, and really proving to yourself that you can win. And make no mistake.

[00:11:28] Sales is about winning. Just like we said, it's about losing. But great athletes and salespeople also understand that competition isn't just about beating others. It's really about pushing yourself to be better. I mean, there are times where it feels really good when you're going up against somebody and you win. And that's great. But that's short-lived.

[00:11:50] The more fulfilling feeling is really the understanding that you're getting better. You know, you're getting just a little bit more competent. You are really growing your craft as a salesperson. And that feels cool. You know, the best salespeople, they'll track their performance. They'll set aggressive goals.

[00:12:18] They'll strive to improve every day. They really embrace the challenge. Just like an athlete is chasing the championship. It's funny, when I interview people, you can tell who is going to be good on the sales side and who is going to struggle. The ones that are scared of metrics, they're so nervous because, you know, metrics for them meant that managers are looking over their shoulder. They're nervous of other people watching them.

[00:12:47] People who are great hear metrics and they say, those are performance indicators. Those tell a story. You know, nobody likes to be tracked when you're not competent. It's horrible. But when you are really proud of what you do, absolutely. Tracking is part of the game, even when it's not good numbers. Let's be clear.

[00:13:10] Metrics don't always, they don't always tell the whole story in terms of your effort and your enthusiasm. What they do, though, is they tell you the path that you're on. And that's powerful. And that's what great athletes want to know. And that's what great salespeople embrace. Number four is teamwork.

[00:13:35] Really, the power of teamwork is it can't be overstated because as much as personal performance matters, no great athlete succeeds alone. Even in individual sports like tennis or golf, those athletes have coaches. They've got trainers. They've got support teams that help them reach their full potential. And sales is absolutely the same.

[00:14:04] While individual effort does drive the results, you've got to show up, you've got to do the work, you've got to do, put in the time and practice and prepare. Success is always amplified by collaboration. A strong team shares insights, motivates each other, and works together to win.

[00:14:27] And whether it's learning on marketing for better outreach tools or working with your manager to refine a strategy, maybe role play, it's not a solo act. And I think that this is where you lean on each other during the times of struggle or defeat or headwinds in a specific time frame.

[00:14:54] You know, 2024 was full of headwinds in many industries. And sales professionals feel it the most because they're out there on the front line trying to generate revenue for the companies that we all work at. And that's daunting. When you have a team that's sharing that same type of challenge, it's reassuring. You go into battle together. You can lose together.

[00:15:20] But the victory and the win together is even more exciting. And finally, you know, I think about the long game. Because if you think about a championship, it isn't won in a single game. Sure, we saw the Super Bowl just last month, earlier this month. Yeah. It was not a single game. Yes, the Super Bowl itself is a single game.

[00:15:49] But it's really the Eagles in this case. They won over a season. Consistent effort and execution. They didn't just show up with a new game plan. They had been doing that. And they tweaked some things based on their opponent. But they certainly already have that rhythm from an entire season. Same is true in sales. Not every call is going to turn into a closed deal today. But plant the right seeds. Build those right relationships.

[00:16:19] Follow up. Add value. You know, that's a big thing that salespeople forget about. Is when you are adding value, you're playing the long game. It will yield results in the future. If you're just calling to say, hey, I'm here. And how can you help me, Mr. Client? And that's the short game. And nobody really wants to be aligned with that type of sales professional.

[00:16:46] Elite sales professionals know that the long game is where it's at. So you've got to add more value than you ask for. And when you do that, you see results. Athletes know that it's time in the gym. It's stretching. It's taking care of the vehicle that's getting you to the next level. Getting you to that championship. That's the long game. I mean, yeah. Diet, exercise. That's not just for today.

[00:17:16] In fact, after a hard exercise, you're probably sore today. It's the long game. So if you're on the sales side, play the long game. Best salespeople don't chase instant wins. They're building pipelines. They're nurturing prospects. They trust the process. Sales is a sport. That's the way that I look at it. It requires discipline. It's going to require mental toughness. And above all, the willingness to fail. But you've got to be prepared.

[00:17:46] You've got to think about competition and getting excited about it. You've got to work individually. But as a team, and you've got to do what we talked about, which is playing that long game. Understanding that today's efforts are going to be what creates tomorrow's success. When I look at a team that has a great quarter, I can tell you it was because of the work they put in the last quarter. That's how it works. It always comes from yesterday.

[00:18:14] Your future self is always a result of your past self. And sales is the most evident and reflective space that I can see when it comes to that type of output. So whether or not you're stepping onto a field or picking up the phone for your next sales call, I just want you to remember that the best players, the best athletes, and the best salespeople share the same mindset.

[00:18:43] They show up. They put in the work. And they play to win. Maybe that's why so many athletes have gotten into sales. And I think that as you take this moment and reflect on how you bring the best out of yourself, whether you're in sales or not, again, I hope that you see the similarities and you go, how can I create some greatness in what I'm doing?

[00:19:11] How can I win the next time I'm given an opportunity? So as always, until next time, stay curious. And I appreciate you having this great conversation with me.