The Business of Roger Federer: What the Swiss Maestro Can Teach Us About Advancing Our Careers
It has been quite a resurgent year for Roger Federer, the master tennis player who has been called “poetry in motion” and who inspired one of the most famous essays by David Foster Wallace. Federer suffered a freak accident last year and had been recovering from knee surgery prior to the start of the 2017 tennis season.
It looked like the sun was setting on an already-legendary career.
And yet, Federer proved his critics wrong and has had a stellar year, winning the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and winning many other smaller tournaments throughout the world. In 2017, Federer is 4–0 in head-to-head matchups against his chief rival Rafael Nadal. The 36-year-old Federer is still doing things that are simply mind-boggling.
That said, it’s Federer’s dominance off the court that is really fascinating. Simply put, Roger Federer’s brand is strong and it’s only getting stronger.
Last year, Forbes estimated Roger Federer’s “brand value” to be worth $36 million per year, which is the highest of any living athlete (greater than other titans of sport like LeBron James, Usain Bolt, and Cristiano Ronaldo). Forbes defines “brand value” as a measurement of how much the name of an athlete’s brand contributes to his or her value or earnings.
Regardless of the precise valuation, Federer is reaping the benefits of his God-given talent. His sponsors are second to none (more on that later), his signature “RF” hats flood the grounds of Grand Slam tournaments, and he has nearly 15 million followers on Facebook and nearly 10 million followers on Twitter.
Life is good for arguably the greatest tennis player of all time. And while Federer is in his own category, I think that we can learn some valuable lessons from the way that he has built Roger Federer Inc.
The good news is that to emulate Federer, we don’t have to be superstars in our job or craft: rather, we can study his behavior on and off the court to help us achieve our career goals, whether that’s building a business, getting that promotion, or simply developing our own personal brands.
1. Work With Those Who Mirror Our Aspirational Images
No person is an island. Throughout his career, Federer has often credited his team (led by his wife Mirka) for getting him into a position to win. It’s those close personal relationships with his family and coaches that have helped Federer win 19 Grand Slam titles.
That said, we’re going to focus on his “teammates” off the court, who have helped Federer leverage his talent in other ways.
I’m primarily speaking of his corporate sponsors.
Federer has a murderer’s row of sponsors, including Rolex, Mercedes-Benz, Moet & Chandon, and Credit Suisse. The image he portrays is unmistakable: he represents class, talent, wealth, and winning.
He’s essentially the James Bond of tennis mixed in with some Swiss sophistication.
While Federer is an anomaly in that he has basically unfettered access to A-list sponsors, he chose sponsors like Rolex to play into the image that he crafted himself. And it has clearly been lucrative, considering that he has the highest brand value out of any living athlete.
So what can we learn?
Ultimately, we should think about following Federer’s lead by first envisioning the brand or image that we want others to have of us (or, if applicable, our business). From that initial vision, we can then partner with people and organizations that represent our values and the image that we want to portray.
According to motivational speaker Jim Rohn, we are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with. At least in Federer’s “sponsorship life,” he has chosen to align himself with some pretty awesome friends. Even if we’re not collaborating with Rolex or Mercedes, let’s emulate Federer by choosing to work with and surround ourselves with a carefully selected group of people and organizations.
2. Stay Humble and Hungry
Federer is arguably the greatest of all time, setting records like the most Grand Slam men’s singles championships (19), the most weeks spent at number one in the world (302 weeks), and a record number of ATP Tour Awards (33).
Yet when he is asked about his successes, he is humble, delivering answers with the tact of a diplomat.
For someone with so much talent and success, it would be all too easy to be arrogant. Yet Federer doesn’t do it. In fact, he makes an effort to remain humble, speaking about how nervous he gets before matches, his gratitude for the support from his fans, and how much he respects his fellow competitors.
No matter where we are in life or how “successful” we are, we can follow Federer’s lead here.
By embracing humility in our day-to-day lives, we can strengthen social bonds, promote learning and growth, and even gain competitive advantages. With humility at our core, we strive to get better every day, recognizing that there is much for us to learn.
Even with his pedigree, Federer keeps trying to master the game, even though he is arguably the greatest of all time. For the vast majority of us who aren’t as proficient at our jobs as Federer, we can also maintain a sense of humility while also being scrappy and hungry.
3. Ignore the Haters and Embrace the Journey
Sure, it’s easy to enjoy the ride when you’re absolutely dominating the competition. The best example is Federer’s season in 2006, where he reached all four Grand Slam finals (winning three of them), winning many ATP Masters Series events, and finishing the year ranked number one in the world.
But at certain points in his career, there have been moments where critics have harped on Federer, arguing that it was time for him to retire. The most recent example is July 2016, when columnists were saying that Federer “will never win another Grand Slam.”
We know what happened next.
Yet even in those lowest moments, Federer maintained his passion for the game. And he continues to bring that passion into the latter stage of his career, saying that “I need the fire, the excitement, the whole rollercoaster.”
He said this despite tennis’s grueling travel and training schedule and while he helps his wife raise four children.
We should all strive to adopt this attitude into our lives. It’s somewhat cliche, but it’s true: instead of fixating on future “success” in our careers, we should instead try to embrace the whole journey, even when we are facing critics and when we are facing difficult challenges in our careers. Ironically, by doing so, we’ll probably end up being more successful. Whether it’s God, karma, or something else—we must maintain faith that things will work out.
Further, we can’t let the critics get us down. Federer knows that there will be fans or critics that won’t like him—even though that’s getting harder and harder to justify. We can follow his lead by keeping our nose to the grindstone and ignoring those that are providing non-constructive criticism.
4. Give Back: Make Time for Philanthropy
With the tennis season essentially lasting 11 months, Federer and his competitors are constantly on tour, playing matches and practicing whenever they can. This doesn’t even count Federer’s responsibilities off the court, both in his personal and business life.
Still, he finds time to give back.
He started the Roger Federer Foundation, whose primary goal is to provide assistance to already existing, but essentially insufficient support services in early childhood care centers, preschools, and primary schools for children ages 3 to 12 years old. Since it launched in 2003, the Roger Federer Foundation has brought in some serious cash. It has raised $40 million and has worked with charitable organizations to develop programs involving hundreds of thousands of children and thousands of teachers.
Besides the work with his foundation, Federer has hosted or participated in many tennis events that have raised money for charity. The Match for Africa, the Hit for Haiti, a charity tennis event with Bill Gates—Federer goes out of his way to combine both his talent within tennis and his desire to give back to those who need it most.
Ultimately, Federer has done some serious good in the world — and we can too.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or non-entrepreneur, we can all help make the world a better place. We obviously don’t have to start our own foundations but we should try to make an effort to give back to our communities, whether it’s volunteering just several hours per month or taking on a greater responsibility within a charitable organization.
Obviously, the charitable work itself is far and away the priority. That said, an added bonus is that we’ll meet interesting people and expand our network. Who knows: by giving back, we may simultaneously meet someone who can be the missing piece in achieving our career goals.
The Federer Way
With speculation that Federer will be on the court until at least 2019, there is still some time to see Federer work his magic on the court. That said, he’s not going away anytime soon. Even in retirement, Federer is going to be a force not only in the tennis world, but in philanthropy.
I’m not saying Federer is perfect. But we can learn a whole lot from him, both on and off the court. Adopting the “Federer Way” will help us stay hungry, humble and grateful for success in our professional and personal lives.
