by Brian Jeffrey, CSP
Actually, selling is not a sport but there are a lot of similarities between selling and some sports. Let's explore some of those similarities.
First of all, let me define sports here. I'm referring to such sports as baseball, hockey, football, tennis, soccer, and other sports involving some skill and interaction with other people.
Before someone says, what about golf, I personally don't consider golf a sport. I consider it an aggravation. I suppose there is a certain amount of skill required in whacking a small ball around a cultured lawn, but there seems to be very little interaction with others beyond lying to one another about your golf score. What business interactions there are is usually an extremely small part of the overall time taken to play a game of golf.
I'm not saying that golf does not have its merits; I'm just saying that I don't consider it a sport.
The Similarities
The superstars in both selling and sports make a lot of money, although it seems to me that there's a lot more money in sports.
The less-than superstars in both selling and sports can make a very comfortable living.
There are a lot of wannabees in both selling and sports, many of whom should probably be doing something else for a living.
It takes a lot of drive, desire, and discipline to really succeed in both selling and sports.
There is a fundamental set of skills required in both selling and sports, and there is nothing inherently complex about either, just a set of simple rules to follow.
While I'm sure there are more similarities, these are the ones that stick out in my mind.
The Differences
Let's take a look at some of the differences that exist between selling and sports.
In sports, people will practise and train for years for a few moments of glory whereas in selling, people train and practise for a few moments and expect years of glory.
In sports, you're on the playing field for a couple of hours at a time and sometimes only once or twice a week, and then only a few seasons of the year. In selling, you're on the playing field eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks of the year.
In sports, when you lose a game, you have your teammates to console you. In selling, when you lose a sale, you have to pick yourself up and get on to the next opportunity.
In sports, if the team consistently loses, they fire the coach, not the players. In selling, if the team doesn't do well, they fire the salespeople, not the sales manager.
In sports, most teams have a coach whose sole purpose is to work with the players to help them achieve their best. In selling, the team may have a sales manager who, because of time constraints, usually limits his coaching, if done at all, to a few moments at the weekly or monthly sales meeting.
Coaching for Success
I strongly believe that both sports and sales should have strong coaches whose prime purpose is to get the best out of their people.
Show me a professional sports team without a coach and I'll show you a disorganized team at the bottom of their league.
It's often the same with sales teams. The best sales teams have a coach, usually called a sales manager, even if it's only on a part-time basis.
The rest are left to their own devices. That doesn't mean they need to be without a coach, it just means they need to coach themselves. It can be done.
What Coaches Do
Coaches—good coaches—observe, comment, correct, and encourage.
When coaches observe, they have a mental checklist of things to watch for, things that can make a difference to the person's performance. They bring the areas requiring correction to the player's attention with their comments and usually offer suggestions for improvement. Lastly, they offer encouragement and support.
While there's no doubt that having an external coach is the best approach, you can self-coach yourself if given the right tools.
Self-Coaching
Just like there are differences between sports and selling, there are differences between coaching and self-coaching.
For one, the first thing you'll notice when you're self-coaching is that you're alone! The second thing is that it's difficult to do something and observe yourself doing it at the same time.
Then of course, there's knowing what to observe. That's why we've developed a Sales Call Self-Coaching Checklist.
The checklist helps you to ask yourself the right questions and has space to write down your answers so you are effectively able to observe and comment on the sales call you've just completed. Look at it as sort of a post-game analysis where you want to see what went well, what could have been done even better, and what you can do for the next call.
The checklist has 37 questions in eight sections — Pre-call Preparation, Approach, Probe (qualifying), Prove (selling/presenting), Objections, Buying Signals, Closing, and Follow-up Call — and is complete with instructions for those of you who actually read instructions.
The checklist uses terminology that will be familiar to attendees of our ProSell professional selling workshop but other trained salespeople will have little difficulty knowing what we're talking about and will be able to effectively use the checklist.
You can request your free copy of our Sales Call Self-Coaching Checklist by e-mailing Checklist@SalesForceTraining.com.
Be the Best You Can Be
Good and great salespeople didn't get that way by sitting around waiting for something to happen; they made things happen.
You can do the same. You can self-coach yourself to even greater sales success. Do it today. Do it now. Do it!
About Brian Jeffrey
Brian Jeffrey (a.k.a. The Sales Wizard) is a Certified Sales Professional (CSP) and president of SalesForce Training & Consulting Inc. He is a sales trainer, sales management consultant, columnist, and author of The Sales Wizard's Secrets of Sales Management. Sign up for his free e-newsletter for sales professionals and sales managers at www.SalesForceTraining.com.
The Sport of Selling