Many of us are sports fans. You may be a fan of football, basketball, baseball, hockey, curling, gymnastics, tennis, pickleball, racquetball, wrestling, powerlifting, skateboarding, skiing, bobsled, archery, and the list goes on and on. As a fan, you sit and watch regular season games, playoffs, or even the Olympics. Hours are spent watching your favorite teams, or athletes compete against others to hold the winner's title. While we watch hours and hours of competition, we are only privy to a very small amount of the time each team or athlete spends in their perspective sport. Why? Eighty-five percent of their time playing their sport is spent in practice, in preparation for that competition that we all tune in to watch.
How much time do you spend practicing?
Unfortunately, based on my experience, we are lucky to spend fifteen percent of our time practicing what we hope to win; the deals leading to achieving our quota. Let me give two examples of how we can learn from teams and athletes to practice in our sport and how you can put it into practice.
Basic Blocking and Tackling
I challenge you to attend a football or baseball practice and pay attention to the drills running regularly. We have all seen some crazy moves in football, especially watching the highlights reel at the end of a busy week of sports. Running backs taking to ball across the line by jumping and doing a flip into the endzone or that 3rd baseman that dives to catch a ball and throws an out to first while laying on the ground. If you attend a football or baseball practice, you will not see football players practicing their flips or throwing while lying down. You will see them practicing basic block and tackle or running plays. You will see baseball players throwing and catching from solid standing positions.
Selling is a complex activity. Prospecting, qualifying, delivering proof of concepts, differentiating your product, your company, and yourself, public speaking, crafting presentations, negotiating pricing and legal terms, and so on. How often do you practice or study those skills? How often do you rehearse each of the types of conversations that happen in your deals? A quick and easy way to identify areas you need to practice is by asking yourself the following question: when asked by my prospects, what makes me feel a pit in my stomach, and I hate answering because I am not good at it? You know those questions most people get on a call hoping and praying that they are not asked, secretly desiring that topic to be avoided at all costs. This is a great place to start. Capture those questions/topics and start practicing.
Research the other team.
Teams and athletes compete against other teams and athletes. They research where they will play and what their stadium, field, and court is like. They research the weather conditions they may have to play in, even altitude can affect gameplay. They research the other team or athlete themselves, watching hours upon hours of their previous games. In baseball, they get familiar with the pitchers they will be hitting against to understand how they throw. They research what plays they run. They research what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. They review any previous times they went against that team or athlete.
How much research do you do on your prospect, their industry, and your prospects' competition? How much research do you do against your competition? What sales plays does your competition usually run? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Does your competition have a champion in the account? Are they stronger than your champion? How well does your competition know your deal? Do they know it better than you? One of my favorite cartoons growing up was G.I. Joe. They had a slogan that is very applicable here: "Knowing is half the battle." Ask yourself and answer honestly, how much time do you give in research?
TAKE AWAY
Practice, practice, practice.
Do your research!
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