“In every human endeavour, there are two areas of engagement: the outer and the inner. The outer game is played on an external arena to overcome external obstacles to reach an external goal. The inner game takes place within the mind of the player and is played against such obstacles as fear, self-doubt, lapses in focus, and limiting concepts or assumptions. The inner game is played to overcome the self-imposed obstacles that prevent an individual or team from accessing their full potential.” The Inner Game of Tennis

Wow, we are nearly at the end of 2017. With so much achieved and so much more to do. December is a great time to review, re-set, kickstart or create new goals to making 2018 hugely successful, fascinating and fantastic. 

Whatever the sport I love watching the ‘Inner Game’ from different types of stars from the worlds of football, golf, basketball, sailing, rugby, etc. You can see it in their; presence, posture, composure, eye contact, focus, breathing and routine before, during and after the game this speaks a thousand words – it’s their ‘Inner Game’!

World’s best athletes
In this country, we are blessed with some of the world’s best athletes, their Inner Game is vital to their success. As their fans will be flocking across the country for horse racing, watching intently to the Golf. Our champions have the practising their technical skills but what will truly make the difference is their mindset – their inner game!.

Great athletes understand there is a “hidden ingredient” that exists beyond the mechanics and knowledge of their field and that understanding it allows them to perform at their best. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods both stated that when they developed their “inner game” their performance went to another level. They had great physical skills but when they harnessed their mental and emotional skills and brought all three together, they really understood how much the inner game influenced the outer game. They understood that talent alone takes you only so far…even great talent!

There are talented people who don’t perform up to their potential in many walks of life. How many people with talent do you know who don’t perform up to their potential? Talent is only part of the equation. To represent your country in the Olympics is a measure of unbelievable talent – but inevitably there will be winners and losers in the game. Most would agree, it’s the “hidden ingredient” of the ‘Inner game’. While they originate from the sport, the same principles can be applied to many learning across life and business.

People in business experience the same performance-related challenges as athletes do. Environments charged with too much negative energy, poor stress/recovery habits, work/life balance issues, confidence, burnout and subtle forms of self-sabotage can all cause a person to underperform on the job. This costs organisations time, productivity and money.

Comparison Between Great Sport & Great Businesses

Great sports stars develop the following skills/traits and these are appropriate for success in the business environment as well. They include:

How about you? Many businesses decisions are won or lost in your mind. Can you access the almost limitless mental resources you possess? I believe you CAN be an inner winner–all the time. Let’s take a look at how you can use inner game mind tools to help you sell better, present better and relate better to your clients.

Study yourself, build your mind tools, hire a coach and you’ll be an inner winner all the time.

So, What Now!

The business and sports worlds can learn a great deal from each other to create an environment of positive energy that fuels the best from people. So, this summer do you think improving these areas would make a difference for you? Call me today to arrange a time to start competing at a new level, developing your inner game and achieving great success.

Here’s to really making 2018 hugely successful, fascinating and fantastic

One of the BEST things any professional, business owner or manager can do is invest in yourself. The chance to “see the forest for the trees” is incredibly valuable. Conferences generate new perspectives, and new ideas create vast new opportunities! Invest in yourself!

And of course, consider working with a business expert or Profit Leader Business Group MasterMind Team this year! Perspective and outside ideas are like gold! And in a tough economy, you want every advantage you can get! If you’d like to discuss coaching,

Email: ann@annrodgershampton.com or let’s discuss what would work for you on 07725052349 – Click here and join Profit Leader Mastermind Club and master your inner game.

Here’s the deal, growing the sales team, adding new logos, increasing top of the funnel activity, leveraging inside sales, new marketing campaigns, etc can add to an increase in sales revenue, but they aren’t the sure fire way to get you over the top. The key to increasing revenue and building your organisation is aligning 4 critical areas; strategy, structure, A team and systems.  Building simple, specific, measurable objectives and tactics across all four of these areas to accelerate business growth

Your Business Strategy  

It all starts with a clear, powerful sales strategy. What’s your 2017 sales strategy? How are you going to market?  How are you going to get the edge on your competitors? What market opportunities or weaknesses are you going to exploit? What competitors are you going to take out? What new markets are you going to penetrate? What industry changes are you going to leverage, etc?  Starting with a killer strategy is key. Having the wrong strategy or worse yet no strategy can be devastating.

Before you look to do anything, make sure you have a clear sales strategy that aligns with your revenue goals. It’s extremely difficult to grow revenue without a strategy, yes there are a lot of initiatives that can move the needle, but a clear, well thought out strategy is at the core to increasing revenue. Take the time to evaluate your surrounding?  Where do you see areas to exploit? What opportunities are presenting themselves? Where are there latent revenue generating windows? Where is the competition failing? What is the current customer base doing? What market dynamics have changed? Look deep, inside and outside of the company for opportunities to build a killer strategy — it’s key to growing revenue.

Your Business  Structure

Your business structure is the framework that holds up strategy. It’s the core to executing on strategy. Structure makes sure you have the right pieces in place. Without a solid, structure your strategy is dead in the water. The key is to make sure your structure supports your strategic efforts. Does your strategy require inside or outside sales? Does it require hunters or farmers. Does it require content and new web support? Does it require alternative compensation plans? Does it require new territories? What does your strategy require to be successful?  Your structure needs to answer those questions and make sure the answer delivers for the strategy. Your structure includes sales operations and sales enablement as well. It’s all the things that enable your strategy to take flight.

Your A Team

Your A Team, your people: the most important aspect of driving revenue and often the most forgotten. This is the biggest problem most organisations face. If you don’t have the right people in the right roles nothing gets done. People are the core to execution. Making sure you have the right people in the right roles is critical. If the people part isn’t correct, nothing else matters.

Take a look at your team. Do they know your vision and strategy? Do you have the right people in the right roles? Does the team have the right skill sets. Do they have the necessary knowledge? Is the team performing at the level required to be successful?  Can you prove your conclusions? Do you have the data? Can measure the strength of your team in relationship to your strategies. Do you even know what skill sets are required to be successful in each of the roles in your organisation? Have you catalogued the key traits and skills required by your team to crush it? Have you measured each and every member on the team against these skills and traits? Do you have a communication structure to maximise your leadership?

The people part is the most important AND the most difficult to get right. People are unpredictable. Making sure you have the people part right is at the heart of increasing revenue. Make sure your plan has a people element that makes sure you have the right people in the right roles, that they align with the strategy and are motivated and to get things done.

Your Business Systems

To make sure everything is running smoothly, to ensure velocity and efficiency and to avoid wasting time and effort killer processes have to be in place. Bad systems are like throwing a monkey wrench into the gears. Poor processes and systems can impede time to market and execution and slow things down. When systems aren’t working correctly or they don’t exist, the ability to achieve the goals is severely hampered.

Take a good look at your systems. Do they enhance the selling process or hurt it? What does your sales process look like? Does it accelerate the sale? Have you updated your customer mapping? Does it include the customer’s buying process? What is your team development process? What about you pipeline meeting process, your coaching process, lead development process, your win/loss assessment process, your on boarding process, your hiring process, etc. Do you have the right processes in place to ensure that you can deliver?

Implementing simple, functional, effective systems is like supercharging your car. It makes everything go BOOM!  Take a look at all your systems and make sure they improve your company’s ability to sell. Make sure they align with the strategy and structure as well as empower the people. Some business owners find it dull but I love it.

A Targeted, Precise, Aligned Set of Objectives Across  Four Areas

Growing revenue is more than just a handful of efforts, but rather a targeted, precise, aligned set of objectives across these four areas. If your business isn’t delivering you will find the problem in one of these areas; the strategy isn’t sound, the structure doesn’t support the strategy, the wrong people are in the wrong roles or the right systems aren’t in place. When all or any of these four are out of whack, then driving revenue is almost impossible and you can kiss growing revenue goodbye.