They find the way.... not the excuse...

"Sportsmanship for me is when a guy walks off  the court and you really can't tell whether he won or lost. He carries himself with pride either way"  -  Jim Courier

What is sportsmanship? Is it an attitude or a set of skills? Might be both. I am not sure. Could be it is way of life. It is about aspirations, self control, team spirit, empathy, physical and mental fitness. It is about wining and losing. More importantly, it is about the unique experience of playing, testing possibilities, stretching limits. It is about an attitude to accept things as it is, enjoying the game, learning from defeat. Your competitors show you possibilities. They stretch you to your limits, they make you question your assumptions. Sportsmanship teaches you how to manage frustrations, how to draw energy from your defeat. It gives you reasons to stand after you fall. It is about persistence, consistency. It opens your mind. Sportsmanship develops your willingness to win. It shows you the world after being champion. It showers rewards of money, good health and healthy mind. Above all it makes you humble by making you realize, what goes up has to come down. 

"Everybody lives by selling something." - Robert Louis Stevenson

Salesmanship is not restricted to the sales persons. It is a core skill required by everyone. It is useful in the corporate world, in society, at home.... everywhere, every time. Phil Jackson, the hall of fame NBA basket ball coach said, "Coaching is a salesmanship. Coaching is winning players over and convincing them they have to play together." Like sports it is a team game. Too important to be delegated only to one sales person. Coaching, homework and off the field planning is as important as in sales. Main focus is on competitors. Like in playing the apt strategy and tactical implementation is critical to success. 

With the growing competition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to catch sales persons young and train them well. Matching the requirement with the available profiles and making a qualified judgement is getting tougher. Academic performance may not be the best indicator of the future performance in the sales career. What could be way out?

Can Sports Persons be Better Sales Persons?

How are sports and sales careers similar? Both of these careers test a person for extreme values. It is an endurance test. Outlasting is equally important like outfoxing. Physical and mental endurance is critical to a success. Both the careers are team game. Both are strong goal oriented. Both are dynamic. Both involve off the field planning and on the field execution. Winning a match/order results into raising the targets. When the talent doesn't work hard, working hard beats the talent. Both the fields are challenging because of the element of competition. Higher you go, higher is the competition. As you win the competition gets tougher. Winning is a process. It has certain steps. One can't jump up. Following all the steps is the religion. But following the steps doesn't guarantee win. 

Goal Orientation Sports persons are focused. They have strong goal orientation. Bosses want similar orientation for their sales team. They want their team to swear by their targets. Sales career is all about setting up and achieving goals. Goal setting brings focus and concentrates energy, resources and efforts. Goal setting is dynamic and never ending process in both the careers. Sports person do not complain about others setting their targets. Fans set targets for sports persons. Larger the fan following, higher is the performance pressure. Successful sales persons are consistent in goal setting. They believe in chasing bigger and difficult targets. 

Winning Instinct Most of the sales targets are tough and difficult to achieve. A salesperson can come out with many reasons why it could not be achieved. Sports persons love winning. They trade-off everything for winning. They know only contribution is not enough winning also needs sacrifices. Winning against all odds is important and sports persons know how to do it. 

Planning Strategy and Tactics Successful selling involves strong sales strategy and tactical implementation. Sports persons are masters of devising the game plan and executing it to the last detail. Coach is a off the field leader whereas captain is the on field leader. They take care of planning accordingly. Like in sales, the planning in sports is always competitor specific. 

Sportive Spirit Sportspeople know they can not win all the matches. Playing involves losing. How one understands, analyses defeat and rises from failure is important.  Michael Jordan accepted that he missed thousands of shots. He missed 2 shots for every basket he scored. Sports persons know they can rest only after winning. Losing makes them spend more time on ground.

Bias for Action  Sports persons are action oriented. They believe getting into action rather than over thinking. They know potential does not win match for them but the smart action does.

Team Spirit It is the foundation of the success in sports. Sportsperson will happily pass the ball to a teammate, when he is in a better position to score a goal rather than attempting the goal himself. They are used to dividing the work and sticking to their role. Sports persons know and enjoy the heterogeneity in the team. They accept members of the team 'as it is....where is it' basis. They leverage the heterogeneity while allocating appropriate roles among the team. The goalkeeper will always defend the goal and the forward players will always attack. Sports people are delegation masters. For the important conversions of the goal like penalty kick or penalty stroke only the player with specialized skill is entrusted.They also know when and how to extend support.

These abilities/skills are equally important in selling. Salespeople know that even if they achieve target and the team defaults then they will fail. The team is the religion for players. Changing the team is a major event. The world saw the reactions when Lebron James changed his team. 

In nutshell, sportsmanship and salesmanship go hand in hand.

Sports persons can be good sales persons, if groomed well in certain skills and knowledge. Be assured ....... they will find the way and not the excuse.