Rethinking Sports Metaphors in Sales, and Other Lessons from World Cups Past from Abby Wambach

I’ve always been resistant to heavy handed sports references and metaphors used in sales team’s vernacular. Yup, I’ve been the first to call it cliche, exclusive, and sexist.?

However, listening to Abby Wambach’s experiences with the World Cup in last week's We Can Do Hard Things podcast , I couldn’t help but draw similarities to sales and business leadership. (Someone call Adam Grant because I’m ~ rethinking ~ over here.)

In fact, one of the most interesting takeaways has me thinking that maybe women’s professional sports is even more similar to sales than men’s.?

Wambach talks about the US team’s loss to Brazil in the 2003 World Cup semifinals, specifically about taking full responsibility for an error in marking the Brazilian player who ultimately scored the winning goal. Of course, she was devastated when they ended up losing the game - for the team, for herself personally - but also for herself financially.?

Wambach’s ability to earn was directly impacted by her performance, especially in a high stakes game like this one.

Unlike professional athletes who are men, who often earn significantly more not just as a player in their field, but from sponsorships and other avenues that tend to sign more men than women.?

In other words, women athletes are often literally paying their bills with their paycheck, whereas men have a lot more financial security even into retirement.?

(Wambach and many other others in US professional athletics have done tremendous work towards pay equity, with the women’s US team settling an equal pay lawsuit last year with US Soccer.)

This kind of pressure sounds a lot more relevant to the kind of pressure people in sales face. Of course, it’s different in obvious ways, but especially for folks in commission-based roles, errors and losses can feel serious, and can be devastating.?

In addition to helping me rethink sports metaphors (women’s sports only for me, y’all ??), there were a few other takeaways on excellence in life and business in this episode.

Talk about the Losses

During this conversation, Wambach graciously reminds listeners that she has actually never played in a World Cup that resulted in a US win. Those that she played in, they ultimately lost, and she was benched the year that the US did win.?

However, this was after she at first requested that they not talk about the 2007 loss during the podcast specifically: “I don’t want to talk about that…next” and “that was a sh**show”.?

As I was listening, I was thinking…please talk about it!?

In business and especially in sales, I’m a sucker for talking openly about mistakes and losses, for a few reasons. The main one is simply that it normalizes them for the group that gets to learn from them. My own perfectionist tendencies cause me to be really hard on myself. Looking back on my time in sales, I truly believed there was something wrong with me when I lost a deal. All of my former bosses can probably attest to how hard (and personally!)? I’ve taken “no”s from prospects.

Not every salesperson is like this, but I believe that it can’t hurt, but rather can help tremendously, the performance of the team overall to shine a light on the tough stuff, run a retro on lost deals, and share stories that help the team grow from mistakes. Operating as if salespeople, especially top performers, aren’t making mistakes dampens the authenticity of your team culture, robs the team of opportunities to learn, and can alienate ramping and low- to mid-range performers who have the potential to be great.?

(Plus: not talking about losses and embracing the reality of them also hurts your forecast in the form of deals that will not close on time or at all. Reminder to reps reading this to update your forecast in your CRM ?? )?

Ultimately, in the podcast episode they did address the major loss to Brazil in the 2007 World Cup, and even managed to laugh about it a bit…another healthy strategy for corporate culture.? As much as it hurt, imagining the Brazilian team looping around and around in the revolving door of the hotel after winning is just a teeny bit funny.?

Leading from the Bench

Wambach also reminds us that if you believe in someone, tell them ahead of time. In her case: before the big game. In business, I think this can look like freely giving trust and support if you’re a leader. What would happen if your team didn’t have to earn your belief in them? What if you just believed in them first, and told them so??

Abby talks about getting the news that she’ll not only play on the World Cup team in 2003, but she’ll be a starting player. Naturally, she was extremely excited…and extremely nervous. When she received the news, her coach told her how much she believed in Abby, giving her context about how the decision was made. This had the effect of pouring gasoline on the fire, leading Abby to rise even higher to the level of excellence she was told she was capable of, scoring a ton of goals and leading the Washington Spirit to win the WSA.?

Abby then paid this forward years later, when she got the disppointing news that she would be a “gamechanger” (read: benched player) in her final World Cup in 2015.

Quick sidebar to briefly mention the absolute power play she employed when getting this news. Her coaches told her, and she said that she needed a minute to process the information. She left the situation, went and “threw some things around”, and came back. Creating that gap between stimulus and response is such a simple (but “gamechanging” if you will) way to have more effective hard conversations in work and life.?

In my current work with Japanese professionals, I often learn a lot more than I teach, and employing silence is one of the biggest cultural lessons I’ve learned. Pauses are long and comfortable (for my students, and more and more so for me - not when I first arrived in Japan, though!).?

Silence can be positive and often means “I’m thinking”, not “I don’t know what to say” or “I didn’t understand”. In fact, to prepare students for cross cultural work, I have to coach them on practicing more “spontaneous” responses in times that it’s called for. Part of it is to improve their English listening comprehension and ability to express themselves in their 2nd or 3rd language, but the other reason is simply to prepare them for Western-style rapid-fire, off the cuff conversation.

Back to Abby. After thoughtfully starting to process the devastating information that she likely wouldn’t play in the 2015 World Cup, she made a conscious choice to show up in new and unfamiliar ways for her team…from the bench.?

Wambach describes this experience as the hardest thing she had done in her life (perhaps because she hadn’t yet become a parent!).? Indeed, as she comments on this experience, looking backwards: “Everything that I had yet to learn about leadership was right there on the bench next to me. Our roles change and the way we see ourselves has to be more honest.”?

She started this new role by texting a starter, a mid-range player, and a fellow gamechanger every morning of the World Cup to comment on something positive she was seeing in the team. She got to employ the “words of affirmation” that had propelled her to a streak of excellence ahead of her first World Cup way back in 2003. The team did need everyone in the seats they took that tournament because they ended up winning the whole damn thing.

Identity Outside of Work

Abby’s wife Glennon, and Glennon’s sister Amanda often joke about their distance from “the sports” despite being Abby’s family. In this episode, Amanda almost seems to apologize at the beginning, realizing as she did her usual “research” for the episode, the magnitude of Abby’s impact on women’s sports in addition to the fascinating details of her star power on the field.?

Though a bit surprising at how much Abby’s family is learning about soccer after several years of marriage to Glennon, I think it’s a beautiful example of the person Abby is aside from her work. Abby speaks a lot on the podcast about the highs and lows of her soccer career, and the fear and uncertainty that loomed with retirement.

What would the rest of her life look like?

How would she support herself financially?

What - other than soccer - was she good at, did she enjoy?

Literally, what would her days be like without the rigorous schedule of a professional athlete??

She didn’t know it then, but she had a full life ahead of her, complete with the love she always gave freely to her teammates, exponentially poured out for her family, and the sense of competition that drove her professional success (even if it now plays out at her children’s soccer tournaments instead of her own).?

There was a time in her life that she identified fully and completely as a soccer player, and now some of the most important relationships she has are with people who didn’t even know her when she played. They love her for the person she is, not what she did or accomplished in her career. This is such an important reminder of who we are beyond what we do for a living.?

Even for the greatest scorer in soccer’s history, who loves the sport to this day, life beyond her career had a lot to offer. Showing up for family and friends, engaging with one’s local community and the larger world, and pausing to rest and cultivate a relationship with the self are all rich aspects of life that can be missed if we are fooled into thinking that the job title is all that there is.?

After a tie playing Portugal yesterday, the US team plays again next weekend vs. Sweden. Let's go!