What Sergio Garcia Can Teach You About Selling

Sergio Garcia probably can't teach you much about selling. As a matter of fact, you can probably teach him more about selling than he'll ever need to know.

But there is something about Sergio Garcia and the game of golf, which if applied to the game of selling, can be very instructive for you.

Instead of assuming everyone reading this newsletter knows Sergio Garcia - let me share a few factoids with you.

Sergio is a professional golfer. He's 29 years old, 5 ft. 10 in. and weighs 160 pounds. His nickname is El Nino.

He's won 19 golf tournaments worldwide including 7 on the PGA Tour. He has an extremely impressive Ryder Cup record 14-3-3.

Imagine someone asking Sergio if he would have liked earning $2.5 million more last year playing golf. I'm guessing he'd
say, "Sure - what would I need to do?"

Well, it turns out, if he had one less putt in each of the 18 tournaments he played, and made the cut during 2008 - he
would've earned an additional $2.5 million for the entire year.

He ranks 196th with his putting statistics - not good for a top ranked player.

The most recent statistics I could find had Sergio averaging 33 putts for each round of golf.

Each tournament, when the player makes the cut, usually includes four rounds of golf - weather permitting.

Let's do the math. On average he had 132 putts per tournament or 2376 putts for the 18 tournaments he completed.

It's hard to believe, but believe it - Sergio Garcia would've earned an additional $2.5 million last year - had he

recorded 18 fewer putts during the year. If he improved his putting by .008% he'd be a lot richer today.

Okay let's put this into a sales perspective. Sergio needs to do something less - one less putt for each tournament he plays.

In sales, you need to do one more thing every week. Take a look at these numbers.

Let's start with 365 days a year.

Subtract 184 days - this includes weekend days, vacation days, home office days, sales meetings and sales training, sick days and of course lost days. Lost days include bad weather, taking the day off before Thanksgiving, and the time between Christmas and New Years etc.

That leaves you with 181 selling days. Let's assume you make five sales calls on every selling day. That equals 905 sales
calls in a year.

During the last 20 years, during my sales training programs, I've asked thousands of salespeople this question. "If your
company asked you to make one additional quality sales call every week - could you commit to doing it?"

It's been my experience over the years that 90% of all salespeople said they could do this.

So that would be an additional 50 sales calls per year.

When you divide 50 by 905 that equals a 5.5% increase in your sales call productivity.

Think about what kind of impact that would have on your selling results.

A minor adjustment with a big impact.

For Sergio Garcia to earn more - he has to have one less putt in every tournament he plays.

For you to earn more - you need to make one extra quality sales call every week.

Now think the unthinkable.

What would happen if you made two more quality sales calls every week?

Holy Moly!