The Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter,” roughly translated to “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together,” reads like a motivational quote for sales teams and their leaders. But that’s not the only inspiration that can be taken from the Olympics and the many ways that athletes prepare themselves for the rigor of the Games. As we see people reach the pinnacle of physical and mental strength, pay heed to the lessons you can apply to your sales team to improve their performance and results.
Lesson 1: Mindset Is Everything
Athletes are dedicated to reaching the finish line and will play until they get to it. Mo Farah famously tripped and fell during his 10,000m race at the Rio 2016 Games, but he got back on his feet and won gold.
It takes a special kind of salesperson who can dig deep, learn from their failures and keep hustling. But their environment and culture matter a lot. Passion and interest in their sport drives a lot of athletes; for sales teams, fostering a strong and supportive team spirit and commitment to a bigger goal can make a huge difference in their dedication and resilience. Creating the right conditions to talk through failures and lessons learned can help your sales teams understand that every “no” is another step toward closing a deal.
Lesson 2: Practice Makes Pro
By the time you see an Olympian sprint to the finish line or tumble across the gym floor, they have spent years honing their skills and practicing in real-world scenarios. Sport is complex. There’s the skill of actually playing a sport, plus understanding different tactics against different teams or in varying environments. There’s also muscle memory involved. Indeed, practice accounts for 80% of the difference in performance between professional-level and amateur sports. Michael Phelps, as an example, is famous for stating he never took a day off from the pool, including birthdays, Christmas, etc.
For sales teams, practice will make perfect. It will lead to seamless demos, the ability to tailor pitches to each prospect, and the knowledge and skills to adapt to different prospect questions, challenges and pushbacks. Or as sales strategist and author Jill Konrath puts it, “What differentiates sellers today is their ability to bring fresh ideas.” Those can only come when your sales reps completely understand your product and connect it to each prospect’s problems and aspirations.
This is especially true for technology sales teams, which often find themselves selling complex products to the C-Suite and other specialists. Practice can make a huge difference. When enabling your sales team, don’t just give them stuff to watch and read. Let them get hands-on with your latest product release to experiment and master how to use it fully before they show it off in the real world.
Lesson 3: It’s a Team Sport
Serena Williams used to hit tennis balls every morning with her sister Venus. Allyson Felix has been vocal about her brother’s support throughout her career. Kerri Walsh-Jennings’ husband is a professional volleyball player who often coaches and supports her from the sidelines. Everyone needs people in their corner to bounce ideas off, to provide advice and feedback, and to coach and develop each other.
Creating a culture of sharing recent learnings, whether that’s how a recent deal was closed or valuable intel on a target company, improves the entire team’s performance. Training as a group, whether that’s as a cohort completing virtual training together or as part of a peer learning program, ensures everyone has the fundamental skills your business needs. After all, enterprise sales is a team sport where the collective skills of many are critical to success.
Coaching deserves a special callout here because it is such a specific need for high-performing employees. Provide your direct reports with guidance on their skills (strengths and areas of improvement), what skills your business needs (for example, to enter a new market or support a product launch), and the career opportunities available to them once they build certain skills. Get in the habit of having regular, informal discussions about their performance, skills, aspirations and career goals. This way, everyone involved has a clear understanding of expectations, current performance, and how to reach the next level.
Lesson 4: They Prepare for All Conditions
Czechia runner Emil Zatopek once said, “it is better to train under bad conditions for the difference is then a tremendous relief in a race.”
Nobody can truly predict how a prospect will come to the table, nor how a demonstration or pitch will go. You might have technical glitches or a cynic to win over during a pitch. These pressure moments cannot always be prepared for, but you can equip your sales team with enough understanding and confidence to adapt in the moment. If they have complete mastery over your product, key messages, confidence and sales techniques, they don’t have to worry about those areas if a challenge suddenly arises.
Lesson 5: Keep Score
Olympians track everything to understand how different factors, from their sleep to their nutrition, impact their gameday performance. They can correlate their performance, progress and success because of the level of granular data they are collecting. The same can apply to your sales team. Don’t be afraid of the data, no matter how painful it may be.
Track results such as deals closed and pipeline, then overlay this with data on their current skills and skill level, learning (skills in progress), and confidence in applying the skill (also known as job readiness). This will help you spot skills that need development in your team, focusing your learning program on the areas that will have the biggest impact on your sales. Most importantly, it will make you and your team better salespeople.
Reaching New Heights
By taking these lessons from Olympians and applying them to your sales team, you can build a culture of excellence and resilience that drives success. Just like athletes push their limits to achieve greatness, your sales team can reach new heights by adopting a winning mindset, practicing consistently, supporting each other, preparing for any challenge and tracking their progress.
Author
Get our newsletter and digital focus reports
Stay current on learning and development trends, best practices, research, new products and technologies, case studies and much more.
