Sell More by Understanding this God, Garden, and Baseball Analogy

I know what you’re thinking from my title: Baseball Gods meet in the Garden of Eden. Thankfully, no.

Instead, some thoughts from the weekend…

While sitting in Church I realized that belief in God is a lot like belief in the sales process.  It’s about Faith.

Everyone who attends believes in God.  Some believe in God but do not attend.  Some are there every week.  Some show up only for Christmas and Easter.  Whether or not they attend, some pray on their own at home.

Everyone who uses Baseline Selling or another sales process believes in sales processes.  Some believe in sales process but do not have one that they follow.  Some follow the process on every sales call.  Some follow the process only when a sales leader rides with them.  Whether or not they have a sales process, some practice and role play on their own.

In 2024, after reading a book called, Cold-Case Christianity, I wrote one of my all-time favorite articles called, Homicide Detective Makes Best Case for Sales Process.  Whether it’s religion or sales process, you must have faith and in the case of sales process, your must have faith that the sales process you are following will always work, and provide consistent, predictable results.

*********************************

While preparing to do some weeding in one of our huge perennial gardens, I considered two options.  My wife prefers to pull weeds by hand and I prefer to get it done more quickly by using my EGO battery powered line trimmer (weed whacker). Regardless of the method, the outcome is the same – no weeds –  but the line trimmer gets it done in a quarter of the time.  I chose a combination of both methods by pulling weeds from between the flowers by hand, and using the line trimmer in the more open areas.

While preparing to prospect for new business a salesperson might consider that they can reach a lot more people in a lot less time by sending an email to many prospects but I would prefer they use the phone.  While email will have extremely low conversions to meetings, the phone seriously improves the conversion ratio but the salesperson might reach and have conversations with only a handful of prospects per day.  They can do both by using the phone to prospect those prospects who are closest to the ideal customer profile.

**********************************

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees resumed their historical rivalry this weekend with the Yankees on a roll, and the Red Sox struggling to play .500 ball.  It’s truly a story of two teams heading in opposite directions.  Given the circumstances, one would expect the Yankees to win easily and on Friday night the game went according to the script. Despite the Red Sox clawing their way back from an early 7-0 deficit, the Yankees won 9-6, setting the tone for what would come next.  The Red Sox flipped the script and came up with two big wins, scoring a combined 21 runs in their games against the Yankees on Saturday and Sunday.

When salespeople develop new opportunities, their selling incorporates historical rivalries.  Local and regional companies tend to go up against a handful of companies on a regular basis.  Like the rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees, we don’t know in advance who will win, how they will win, or when they will win. But like key contributors to a baseball win, who vary from game to game in the baseball, there are various things that contribute to a company’s win.  It might be a strong relationship, an incredible price, your ability to provide award-winning service, or your willingness to customize.  Highlight the key differentiators that appeal to your clients/customers and allow them to help you win the business.

Whether you’re praying for guidance, weeding your garden, or cheering for the Red Sox, success in sales comes down to faith, flexibility, and standing out. Believe in your process, mix up your methods, and highlight what makes you unique to win more deals.

Image by Grok3