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The Sales Clinic: Olympic Sales Lessons?
September 29, 2008
What lessons can businesses learn from sports, and the Olympics in particular? And why are these lessons crucial to your success?
By Andy Preston
Like most of you I'm sure, I watched some of the Olympics on television. I'm fascinated by the display of human performance, and the connection between sales performance and sporting performance. I first came across this when I worked on the Commonwealth Games and as well as delivering sales training, I work with a number of athletes and teams helping them get the very best out of themselves.
There are some great lessons that businesses can learn from the sports world to improve our own performance, so let's have a look at these in turn:
1. Stick to What You’re Good At
Being in the Olympics—or even training for it—forces you to take a long hard look at yourself. For those sports where people are lucky enough to be able to compete in more than one event, it forces you to take a long, hard look at yourself and ask yourself, "What am I truly good at?"
How often do we ask ourselves this question in sales? We may have done so before we started our career, but it was probably the only time we've done so. Even then, we tend to get offered work that isn’t necessarily our core expertise, but are tempted to take it on, usually for short-term cash flow reasons.
This can be particularly true when a business is looking to get "off the ground," and maybe doesn't have as much work as it would like: It then gets offered a piece of work that isn't necessarily in line with what the business is set up for, but takes the client anyway.
The key lesson here is to find out what you're good at and stick to it. If you have to do things in your business that you're not good at, why not look at bringing in someone else to do that sort of work, or outsource it? I’m sure you’ll see the results immediately.
2. Set Yourself a Goal—and Focus On It
Now you've probably heard this piece of advice before. And if you're working with someone like a business advisor or a coach, you've probably been advised to set some goals for your business. And for those of you that have goals, you've probably based them around the turnover or profitability of the business.
Now those are okay to start with, but I'm also passionate about people setting themselves some activity-based "sales goals." Even if you don't class yourself as a salesperson, and you have the responsibility for bringing in sales for the business (or managing the person that does), then you have to start setting some sales goals and focus on achieving them.
I remember when I first started working with sports industry professionals. I was impressed just how focused they were on their goals. They had them in their mind all the time, visualised themselves achieving them and reminded themselves everyday why they were doing all the steps along the way, and what the end result would be.
Compare this to the average salesperson that goes to a sales appointment with a vague goal and hopes that the potential new client will buy from them, but without any real idea of the steps needed to get them there. Can you see any differences here?!
Can you imagine Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, winner of eight gold medals at this Olympics and breaking seven world records in the process, saying to himself in his preparation, "Oh, I'll just turn up and hopefully I'll end up winning the gold medal"? Seems ridiculous, doesn't it? But how often does that happen to the average salesperson or business owner? All the time!
Setting activity-based goals for your business will actually focus you on and take you toward your financial goals. (If anyone wants any help on what activity-based goals to set for their business in order to have the best chance of success, contact me at www.andy-preston.com and I'll send you details of exactly what goals you need to set.)
3. Have Fun and Enjoy It
If you've got your own business, you've got to have fun with it. Now don't think for one minute that I'm saying you shouldn't take your business seriously—not at all—but I am saying you should be able to have fun and enjoy when you can, otherwise what's the point?
Just look at the difference enjoying yourself can have. Take Usain Bolt, winner of the men's 100 meter final, breaking his own world record in the process. Laughing with joy as he crossed the line, you could see how much he was enjoying it. If you enjoyed your work this much, would you be more effective at it? Of course you would. Would you put the extra effort in when required? Of course you would.
Usain Bolt was obviously having fun, yet picking up on my last point, he was also focused. His preferred event is the 200m and he was extremely focused on that. So much so that he only decided he was definitely going to run the 100m two weeks before the event. Can you imagine that, the 100m world-record holder not running the 100m because it might interfere with his preparation and chances of winning the 200m? That's focus!
Follow the tips above and watch your sales figures soar! I look forward to hearing about how you've implemented them and made them work for you.
S&MM columnist Andy Preston is a leading expert on sales and sales management. You can see more about Andy at www.andy-preston.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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