How tennis 🎾 could improve my sales performance!

Can you improve your sales performance with a sport? And if so, how is that possible? I hit a low point in my sales performance and felt empty and creatively blocked.

I couldn’t even get enough first meetings because I lacked the energy for hunting. You need to have enough sales activities like cold/warm calls and emails within a certain timeframe. I was far behind my personal expectations.

It couldn’t get worse, I thought! But it did. The closings didn’t happen, and I started to doubt myself and my abilities. I became more tense and impatient when it came to the deal phases and the necessary processes. I had to somehow close deals again to get out of the slump and improve my performance.

I decided to talk to some other sales colleagues and kept getting the advice to pick a sport that could cover and boost all of my necessary skills. That’s how I came up with the idea of starting to play tennis again.

Then Viki came at just the right time, and I arranged tennis training with her for an extended period, combined with mental coaching.

During our regular sessions, I became very aware of some key points and began to integrate the skills I had learned and regained into my daily sales game.

My top learnings from tennis 🎾

Concentration:

In a tennis match, you must be 100% focused. You never know where the ball might land or how your opponent will play their set.

Similarly, in sales, you must maintain 100% concentration in every single call and meeting. Every sentence you speak and every movement from the customer can be crucial to your success. Don’t get distracted by side issues!

Patience:

A big lesson from tennis and my mental sessions with my coach, Viki, is the importance of patience. You can’t force success. A tennis set needs to be played strategically— the longer the ball is in play, the higher your chance of success. You need to make your opponent move and carefully watch their steps.

My key takeaway: Approach your deals with the right patience. Don’t force a closing—let the ball keep moving, keep an eye on your counterpart, and observe their steps. What will their next move be? How can you anticipate this and use it to your advantage? In tennis, you win the game when you play patiently and purposefully.

Start the game!