Chess, Golf, Sales. Not In that Order

Read time: 3 mins.

Chess is a classic game (that sometimes eludes me), but is fun as hell to play. Its about strategy, timing, and overall using your brain. Which, relates perfectly to sales and golf. Or golf and sales.

Golf wise: Every shot has 10001 iterations on how you can play it. What you can do. Where to hit it. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the score on the card. You can literally shank a ball, make a crappy chip, but by god be a greater putting wizard than Merlin himself to put down a par on the scorecard. Its all about tying everything together with your brain.

Golf tips: Here’s a few things that got me to beat (every once in a while), the #3 ranked golfer in the world Xander Schauffele * - yes, #3 in the world. Like the actual world. We played together in High School.

1. If you suck at bunker shots, stay out of them. But if need be, check out this video and you’ll be set: YT vid link.

2. Focus on chipping and putting. Getting up and down from green side is a super power.

3. Build repeatability your own way. With your own swing. Check out this simple vid with pro golfer/swoll dude Bryson DeChambeau: Link to vid.

4. Birdies should be automatic on all par 5s.

5. No matter what, its the next shot. Whether you top, chunk, shank, slice, etc. Next shot is all that matters.

Sales wise: The tips are the same. There are literally 100001 ways to book a meeting with a prospect. Email. Phone. Referral. Snail mail. AI. Automations. In person. There’s a lot. And its usually all been done and tried. So at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is (a good relationship with a prospect), and a booked meeting. Some people rip dials. Some people social sell. Doesn’t matter how it happens, but the main goal is to gain clients, gain market share, and increase company rev.

Sales tips: Using your brain, make sure you have a good list. You can rip 1000 cold calls a day, or worse yet spam the hell out of your prospects and send 500 crappy emails a day, but if you don’t have a good list and or good data, its worthless.

I’ve been digging into Clay more, and the possibilities with that tool to create and curate a list is really inspiring. It can filter lists. Auto-populate data. Enrich data. Make lookalike lists. Its dope. I’d hit up my buddy Benyamin Holley who’s doing amazing things with Clay, and crushing it in terms of lead generation and list building for ideas.

There’s also a clay slack community that’s free. Hit up my bud Kellen Casebeer for access. Warning - Only cool people granted access. Not sure how I got in, but just a heads up.

TLDR - Use your brain. Golf, sales, chess. They’re very much alike. Always think about the best (and easiest in my opinion) ways of going about it. And just remember, it doesn’t matter how you get there. The score is the same in all regards. Also, chess is fun. I’m down for a match.

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