Be Like Lenny

Baseball is a sport that requires mental toughness. You can have all the talent in the world but if you can’t control your mind, you won’t be successful. The best baseball players fail 70% of the time. An At Bat can range from swinging and missing to fouling off a pitch, to stroking a single up the middle. You can hit a sharp line drive that‘s snagged by a baseman, or a weak floater that somehow drops in. Slumps can hit you like a disease; they’re consuming and the harder you try to overcome them, the more you’ll struggle.

To be a good hitter, you need to forget striking out the moment you start your walk back to the dugout. Players that don’t possess this ability are bound to fail. As a fan, you want to see your favorites fired up and competitive, but the best players stay cool and collected.

In Michael Lewis’ book, Money Ball, he describes two players, Billy Beane and Lenny Dykstra. Billy Beane was a five-tool player; he could run, throw, hit for power and average and field his position. But failures ate at Beane and baseball is a game of failure. Dykstra didn’t know any better. He was talented, but not like Beane. Self doubt wasn’t part of Dykstra’s make up and if he got one hit and struck out three times in a game, the only thing he remembered was the hit.(1)

In his book, Lewis described how a few Mets’ players were watching in awe as Hall of Fame pitcher, Steve Carlton warmed up. Carlton won over 300 games in his career and had one of the nastiest sliders in baseball history. Dykstra didn’t know who he was, and after being informed, he proclaimed, “Shit. I’ll stick him.”

What does this have to do with sales? Sales is like baseball. When you’re making calls and someone is rude to you, it’s like striking out in baseball. If the best baseball players fail 70% of the time, the best salespeople fail 75% of the time. And just as the best baseball players shrug off strike outs and errors, the best salespeople shrug off rejection.

If it’s Monday morning and you find out you lost a big sale, you got to forget about it and move forward, the same way a hitter needs to forget a 0 for. If you check out or take the rest of the day off, how many others sales are you affecting?

In baseball, if you start thinking of all the stuff stacked against you - fast balls, change ups, curve balls and sliders, all the fielders – you’re going to fail. The same thing is true in sales. If you start thinking about your competition, your pricing, whether or not people want to talk to you, no solicitation signs…you might as well stay home. Heck, if you were thinking of all those things, you already called in sick.

In sales, ignorance is bliss and introspective salespeople fall like flies. Enter a business or a call like you have the greatest news or the most valuable information to share. If you’re hung up on or asked to leave, don’t give it a second thought. If a potential customer calls to inform you that they decided to go another way, thank them for the opportunity and start looking for your next opportunity. Focus on success, strengths and acceptance, not failure, weaknesses and rejection.

Be like Lenny.

(1) Dykstra had the same mentality in the financial world and although it started out well, he lost everything, including his wife, and made a lot of enemies along the way.