I heard a great analogy today that I had never once considered. I often tell people that running helps me in every facet of my life (my job, my health, my relationships…). Without running I do not think I would be as motivated, driven, hard-working or dedicated as I am. To be honest, I feel lost when I don’t run. Working in sport ticket sales I have found that running is a lot like ticket sales and I use that analogy frequently. They are both individual, you’re competing against yourself, you’re only as good as you push yourself, you mentally have to motivate yourself each day to stay on track and to keep going regardless of how discouraged you are or what happened yesterday. You’ll face rejection and have bad runs, sometimes you experience a string of them but it’s that one great work-out or key sale that helps you turn things around. You get the point.
Today someone told me they see the Ticket Sales industry in sport as being similar to a marathon. He was absolutely right. You have to compartmentalize the various stages, or miles, breaking them down into smaller portions and working through each individually before you can cross the finish line. You have to put your head down and push through those tough stages knowing you can you can breathe a little easier when you reach those easier, downhill stretches. He understood the mental strength required to complete the marathon, most likely because a sporting season is very similar. During the off season there aren’t many sales being made and things are quite, similar to a maintenance phase when you’re just logging miles and making deposits, slowly putting miles in the bank. You wonder what you’re doing and whether or not the work you’re putting in will come to fruition, in ticket sales as well as training. Will this client come through and be that big sale you’re working towards? Will all of the early morning hours, little sleep and sacrifices made to complete your training pay off on race day? How do you know? You don’t. You have to put in the work, for months at a time and trust that you’ve done your best. When other sales people are slacking or simply going through the motions you have to make sure that you’re still pushing hard because at the end of the season it will payoff in your sales numbers versus theirs. Those that press the snooze button one more time or slow down on their tempo training runs won’t have the tools they need to succeed on race day, or achieve that PR. If you slow down in the middle/late miles of the marathon often there’s no coming back. You can’t make up that lost time, those seconds that will make the difference as to whether you reach a new PR or qualify for the Boston Marathon. It’s all about mental determination. Ironically, Josh Cox posted a column today identifying something similar. His take is a little different than what I heard but with the same objective: “Marathon running is a great metaphor for life because in order to succeed you have to make daily deposits over a long period of time.”
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it that way but it’s the perfect analogy: sales in sports is like running a marathon.
If I want to break 3:00 in the marathon what does that translates into ticket sales?!
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