If You’re Not First, You’re Last

Business developer and author Emanuel Carpenter says that “competition in sales is not only good and healthy. It’s essential. If we’re not competing internally with our fellow salespeople, we’re competing against another company’s sales team. Competition is inevitable. For salespeople, a competitive nature is a must. Why do you think it’s said that so many former athletes do so well in sales?”

Everyone wants to get ahead in life. Going the extra mile shows others that you’re a dedicated and valuable employee. So when sales managers create competitive environments and incentivize their employees to be the ones who set the most appointments and generate the most revenue, it’s a whole different ball game.

But what happens when you’ve hired naturally competitive sales employees? From his own experience, Emanuel Carpenter says that “the company earned more revenue due to these go-getters and the goals set for them.”

Technological advancements and modernization have created more buying options for companies, which has increased competition among vendors. So how do you get ahead of your competition to bring more revenue into your company? You hire competitive employees.

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Many companies are reluctant to create competitive environments because they believe it will create a cutthroat culture in which their workers will work against each other to get ahead. But competition doesn’t need to be a dog fight against another person. Sometimes the biggest battle is getting you to compete with yourself in order to reach your own goals.

Former UC Davis men’s soccer player and 2015 graduate Brian Ford says that competition among athletes is honest and friendly because of their desire to see the team succeed as a unit, as opposed to wishing the glory upon themselves. When athletes figure out what their roles are on the team, they form a unit. However, Ford says that athletes are “still personally motivated to see themselves succeed, with that desire to prove that they are the best. This manifests as honest competition and friendly rivalry between teammates.”

Athletes don’t use competition as a means of sabotaging their teammates to get ahead, because that takes away from the big-picture goals of being a part of a team. It’s counterintuitive for athletes to put their own success before the team’s success, and that is why competition among athletes is healthy. Athletes want to be the best for their teammates, so they compete to improve their own game.

Ford says that collegiate athletics are unique because the environment promotes a team culture while at the same time gives athletes the opportunity to fulfill their own personal goals. Because of this, Ford says student-athletes “learn to respect their teammates (with whom they are competing for position or status), but actually build a stronger rapport with those they are competing against. They want the very best for their teammate, but they want to be better themselves.”

It’s a continuous cycle of athletes feeding off of each other’s energy.

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Growing up playing basketball, Tiffany Burns said, “If we didn’t step on that court and give it everything we had for the hour we were on the court, we heard the words ‘I’m disappointed in you’ when we got home. Let me tell you, hearing those words were like knives to the chest.

“…BUT — it pushed me, it challenged me to do better, it brought out my competitive side, it instilled the mindset of refusing to fail, it made me a better teammate, a better player and a better child. I had my fair share of bumps, bruises and battles trying to become an elite athlete and it taught me how to be the leader I am today.”

Tiffany graduated from the University of Toledo in 2009 and completed her MBA at Tiffin University in 2013. Because of these experiences, she says that she’s a big believer in “self-help” books because they give her the ability to improve upon her current skill set. “I practice what I do everyday and never assume I’m great,” she said.

She even challenged herself to a competition after graduating college. After accumulating college debt, she promised herself that once she earned a certain amount of money, she’d switch career paths and have fun working in real estate, mentoring, and teaching.

Athletes are goal-oriented people, and when you put them in a competition, they will make it their goal to rise up and win. When an athlete’s career ends on campus, their competitiveness does not disappear. Instead, it’s brought into the next chapter of their life: work.