When You Negotiate In Selling, You Can Learn Great Lessons From Golfers

As many of you know through my negotiation training course, speeches and seminars golf is a pastime for me. I'm not a great golfer, but I enjoy the game and follow it from my home in Northern California. The Senior Tour had their final tournament of the year recently: The Charles Schwab Cup at Sonoma, just a few miles up the road. Being a golfer, I wanted to see how the "big boys" did it, so I spent a few days watching the best in the world play the game of golf.

They live in a different world! As I watched them on the practice tee and the course, I felt immense relief that there are other ways to make a living. If I had to feed my family by my golf skills, people would say, "There goes Bob Gibson. He's got the skinniest kids in the world."

As I watched them on the practice tee, I noticed that many had coaches instructing them. Some were working on their swing, some on their timing, and some on set-up. I was watching the best in the world, and they were working on the fundamentals of their game. They were perfecting the same things a beginning golfer works on!

It's my observation that the best in the world in any endeavor - whether it's golf, or selling or managing, or negotiating, simply perform the basics better than others in their field.

There they were, the best in the world, still working with a coach – a mentor. When I go to my local club, average golfers don't work with coaches. They do what they've done before, and hope it will get better. They think they can figure it out on their own, but few do.

Many people think the pros have a negotiation coach because they're the best.

I'd say part of the reason they are the best is because they have a coach!

In business and sales, coaching/mentoring is not just for beginners or those who can't make it. It's for successful sales professionals who want to be even more successful.

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