Put On Your Game Face and Talk Sporty To Me
Sportsmanship in sales is the thread running through this whole story, even though it starts with a Super Bowl ring and a very sporting weekend in Melbourne.
If you’re wondering… then, yes, this is me getting my game face on and yes, I am wearing an authentic Super Bowl ring. My friend Jen Mueller is the sideline radio reporter for the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks, part of the Seattle Mariners television broadcast team and also the proud recipient of this classic piece of jewelery.
She was officially recognised as an integral part of the team, clearly not for playing, but for a stack of little things like fronting up at all practice matches and spring trainings regardless of the weather just as the players did, taking time out to get to know all the players personally and doing what she had to do to show up consistently.
Why have I introduced both Jen and sports into this conversation?
And for a few different reasons!
- According to Jen, ‘sports should be your go-to because of its versatility, popularity and ongoing storylines. There’s always something to talk about, and there will be always be fans to talk with’.
- Secondly, being able to genuinely know a little bit about what’s going on in the world of sport can be a massive part of rapport building for anyone, especially women.
Especially considering that in the field of B2B Sales, women are connecting predominantly with men – some who would really appreciate bringing sport into conversations.
- Thirdly, we have all been in situations where we’ve had to put our game face on for whatever reason.
It’s not just for polka players or psyched up football players, it also happens for those who ‘get in the zone’ before a speaking engagement, or who ‘take a moment’ before meeting a new client.
It’s when we move into that state of mental readiness – a competency many of us need to have to show up in the best possible light for any occasion.
- Finally, because sports and business have a common link – one of ethics – it is important to differentiate between winning and competing.
Unusual for me, but it does allow me to ‘talk sporty’ in this article. 
On Saturday night, my family and I went to the first game of the season for the AFL (Australian Football League) – a game between Collingwood (Go the Pies!) and Hawthorn.
Whilst my son struggled to talk to me when my team kicked a goal, I made sure I congratulated him when his team did – all in good fun for us though, but for many that sportsmanship fun is missing. 
On Sunday, we were fortunate to watch the Australian Grand Prix in comfort and in pole position as Melbourne showcased herself beautifully putting on this spectacular event.
Needless to say my pick from the sweep saw Daniel Ricardo come in fourth – oh well, a loss of $5 was all in fun, there were winners and losers and a great day was had by all.
What was unfortunate though, was that between both events, the Australian Cricket Team, in South Africa and mid way through the fourth test have just been found cheating! Through ball tampering. The team’s captain Steve Smith, whilst a great player, has clearly shown his colours when it comes to leadership.
Getting Bancroft, a new player who would do anything for the team, to do his dirty work, knowing there would probably be little pushback, is not cool! He has demonstrated gamesmanship, sure! Let’s win boys! But clearly left ethics and strategy on the sidelines.
Previous captains like Alan Border took a different approach to winning. Let’s take our massive losses, hold our heads high and vow not to go down that track again. Let’s look at different training methods, personnel, coaches and approaches. And they did – they turned it around.
Of AB, Mike Coward wrote,
[… He] committed the greater part of a long and distinguished career to re-establishing the credibility and image of Australian cricket.You see, there is a big difference between gamesmanship and sportsmanship – in business and in sports.A self-effacing man of simple tastes and pleasures, Border served at the most tempestuous time in cricket history, and came to represent the indomitable spirit of the Australian game.
Gamesmanship can mean ‘winning at all costs’. It’s about breaking the rules to win, or get that competitive advantage, and not worry about the consequences to the game or the players welfare – worry about it only if we get caught, when arrogance says ‘we probably won’t get caught’. It’s rife in all forms of sports, and in all forms of business.
If it’s not ball tampering, then it’s drugs or gambling or bribes or just plain playing dirty.
Being outcome based is one thing but how you get there is a completely different ball game.
What’s needed in business as well as sports, is sportsmanship, and it needs to come from the top.
It’s helping someone step into a better version of themselves – it’s about ethics and respect and integrity and hard work where everyone grows and wins. It’s winning at ‘a‘ cost, not at ‘any‘ cost and it’s accepting defeat in a professional and ‘what can we take from this’ way.
Sportsmanship in Sales: The Five Baseline Competencies
Sportsmanship in sales and sales leadership relies on five baseline competencies and these competencies sound like such motherhood statements, but they are hard to negate:
*Desire – who doesn’t have desire for what they are doing? If you don’t have a passion, a desire, a will to do what you are doing, then get out! Give your spot up to someone who will show up to every spring training and every practice match. If you don’t have some kind of deep desire and purpose behind what you are doing, then you won’t put in. You will be the one looking for the shortcuts – and there aren’t many that are ethical, bar hard work.
*Commitment – who says they want to be successful? Everyone! But who says they want to be successful in their role? Who says they want to be successful in selling? If you do, then are you prepared to do the things you need to do? Are you prepared to be that person that you need to be? Do you even know the answers to those questions?
*Responsibility – who can put their hand up and say ‘the buck stops with me’, or ‘I did it and here’s why’, or ‘I didn’t do it and here’s why not’? Responsibility is such an overlooked competency that plays a huge part in the success of a winner because a winner doesn’t blame others or external factors, nor do they make excuses for a lack of results.
*Outlook – who ever considers someone’s outlook? Let’s face it, if you front up to a practice match, kick stones around, look into the sky and generally not give a proverbial, then you won’t be there long. A downtrodden, shitty outlook is toxic to the rest of the team and needs to go! The same for leadership that expects their team to do their dirty work for them.
Respect – Success breeds success and respect breeds respect! We need to respect what we do, who we do it for and ourselves. If we are in a team, we have fans that pay money to come and watch us play and the win is a by-product.
If we are in business, we have colleagues and clients who give us their time, their loyalty and their money to support us and the business is a by-product. As for ourselves, well, if we don’t respect ourselves then we are open to anything ….
So, put your best foot forward and clean your game face and do what is right for all parties, so that business and sports become a true win/win scenario.
A couple of points to note:
* Being able to evaluate yourself or your sales team on these four competencies (plus others) is a game-changer, literally and figuratively! The fifth competency is my addition so please message me if you would like more details as 3 Red Folders is a distributor for the OMG Evaluation and Assessments for B2B sales environments that can help you sort the wheat from the chaff or the men from the boys, so to speak.
Secondly, should anyone want to read Jen Mueller’s work then please head over to www.talksportytomeblog.com
In the meantime,
Game On!!!
I see the absence of sportsmanship in sales most clearly in how a team talks about the deals it lost. Blame the market, blame the price, blame the buyer – anything but an honest look at what happened. Sportsmanship in sales means taking the loss the same way you’d take a loss on the field: with your head up, ready to review the tape.
Bringing Sportsmanship in Sales to Your Team
Sportsmanship in sales isn’t a soft skill you bolt on later – it’s the standard that decides whether a team grows together or tears itself apart chasing the same number. The five competencies above are simple to list and hard to live, which is exactly why sportsmanship in sales has to come from the top and get modelled, not just mentioned in a meeting.
Ask any coach and they’ll tell you sportsmanship in sales is a trained habit, not a personality trait – which is good news, because it means any team can build it, one debrief and one honest conversation at a time.
The teams that get sportsmanship in sales right don’t talk about it much – they just live it, and it shows up in how quickly a rep helps a teammate close a deal that isn’t theirs.
None of this is complicated, but sportsmanship in sales is easy to talk about and hard to practise under pressure – which is precisely when it matters most.
I’d rather work with a team that has sportsmanship in sales and a mediocre quarter than a team that hits the number and leaves a trail of burned relationships behind it – because only one of those teams is still standing in three years.
Sportsmanship in sales starts with the small stuff – crediting a teammate, admitting when your forecast was wrong, congratulating a competitor on a fair win – long before it ever shows up in a headline number.
Jen’s Super Bowl ring is a nice story, but the real point of it is this: nobody remembers her for a stat line, they remember her for showing up with sportsmanship in sales-style consistency, game after game, whether the cameras were rolling or not. That’s the version of sportsmanship in sales worth building your own reputation on.
If you’d like Bernadette to bring this same conversation about sportsmanship in sales to your team, her keynote presentations are built around exactly this – competing hard without losing who you are in the process.I’m Bernadette – founder of the Decision-Led Revenue™ Operating System and The Revenue Leader of Influence™, where I work with CEOs and sales leaders to build a sales team they can rely on to think, make the call, tell the truth about pipeline and own the result.
If any of this resonated – or if you’re staring at a revenue problem that feels like it should have been solved by now – I’d love a conversation.
BOOK A NO-OBLIGATION 20-MINUTE CALL
And if you’d rather join the discussion, you can also join me on Substack. That’s where the Revenue Leader of Influence community is starting to have these conversations in real time.
