Adam Sand advises sales professionals to invest in personal and professional development to succeed on teams. Using sports analogies (solo sports like tennis/golf vs. team sports like football/basketball), he argues that effective team selling requires following agreed plays, not constantly improvising—assume the sale and document psychological conditions accordingly.
You'll have to invest in some of your personal professional development if you're going to be on a team. I've worked with some extremely talented people in finance and M and A that are so, so, so, so smart, but no eq. Their favorite sports are tennis and golf. You know what I mean? Solo sports. And then there's people whose favorite sports was, like, football or basketball, and they were actually good at playing on a team. This is a big part of what makes this work. And so part of that is to treat every deal the same, right? You got to run the play, right? When you're on a team sport, you got to run the play. You don't get to call your own audibles on the field all the time. And that means you're going to assume the sale and document the psy conditions as if you're going to get the sale.
