Hockey, Sales, & Leadership: five values and skills the game taught me.
“Forecheck, backcheck, paycheck.”
Today, January 13, 2021, the National Hockey League (NHL) kicks off the abbreviated 56 game season, and I couldn’t be more excited for hockey to come back.
Hockey has always been a big part of my life (I wrote about it here four years ago). I was fortunate enough to have worked in the business of sports, and to this day, still find joy in playing the game itself — virtually or otherwise. The whole “play hard, work harder” mentality and harmony that hockey has always provided is indispensable.
Let me explain.
Play Hard.
I know it’s weird how a 200 feet sheet of ice makes me feel like a kid all over again.(With the ongoing pandemic, I’ve since resorted to playing multiple seasons of NHL20 and NHL21 on my PS4, along with the occasional head-to-head matchup with friends to help satisfy my need to play and stay connected with my hometown.)
I’ve played in adult recreation leagues for the better part of fifteen years across Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Austin, Texas; and San Jose, California meeting talented and genuine individuals along the way, most of whom I still keep in touch with on a regular basis.
Those “later-than-my-bedtime” Tuesday night games or the occasional 6AM Sunday morning skate with a group of people was something I looked forward to when the recreational season started. Each week, the 1–2 hours on the ice provided a brief moment detached from digital devices, multiple goal celebrations (on a good night), a strong defensive play breaking up a 2-on-1 or killing a penalty (my favorite), and occasionally the post-game pizza slice or adult beverage at the upstairs bar or at the restaurant across the street.
Regardless if victory was achieved, playing the game provided a sense of accomplishment each week (or even twice a week if I was lucky):
- Catching up with a friends in the locker room (superstitiously, my good friend Steve would always sit to my right)
- In hockey, you skate for roughly 30–60 seconds per shift over the course of three 20-minute periods — I learned to forget quickly, especially if the previous shift wasn’t the best
- I was contributing to something greater than myself. As a defensemen, I found more joy in shutting down the other team in our zone because I knew that if the other team couldn’t score, we’d have a better chance of winning
In essence, playing hockey helped me create a forum in which I could find success and progress….and then carry that success to my day-to-day responsibilities and tasks. It is a gratuitous circle. And it’s fun.
Work harder.
This July marks ten years with Google, but before tech, I earned my sales stripes working for the Chicago Blackhawks and my hometown Detroit Red Wings.
While I was part of a Stanley Cup Championship team for nearly four seasons and enjoyed every moment with colleagues and clients, I vividly remember the daily grind:
- Making 100+ calls a day…..and only connecting with one person. I got real good at voicemails.
- Hearing a “no” more often than a “yes.” I took rejection personally and had to repeat the phrase “it’s not personal- it’s just business” more often than I’d like to admit (and yes, it still hurts to hear “no”)
- Ending a workday/gameday at 10PM local time and then having to get back to the office by 7:30AM to do it all over again for a back-to-back tested my stamina on more than one occasion (but “time is money”)
However, despite the day-to-day stresses that come with carrying a quota, I also recall my VP of Sales always having such a positive attitude, often saying the phrase “Kevin, I’m happy to be here! We work for a National Hockey League team! How cool, right? [insert big smile here]” in times of low energy/morale, or in the midst of a losing streak. I’ve since carried this attitude throughout my career.
When I reflect back on these experiences, there were five ways playing and working in hockey made me a better teammate and salesperson:
- I learned to be resilient: the mental toughness and inner drive to get back up after you’ve been knocked down takes time to create and is even more difficult to maintain. Resiliency is best taught by experience.
- I learned to be coachable: after a bad shift or a not-so-great sales call, feedback was the only way I could improve. The word “feedback” has a negative connection with it, and while it’s still challenging to hear what I need to hear, I know it’s because people believe that I can do better. The pressure to perform and exceed expectations is better than a daily grind void of encouragement.
- Choose your attitude: you can choose to let the last call or the last shift ruin the next call or the next shift….or not. We have 24 hours everyday to make something happen, so stop complaining, get the work done, and help others around you.
- Good things happen when you beat the sun in the morning: “making 10 calls before 10:00AM” (a philosophy I took pretty seriously) or getting in that morning skate almost always set up the day to be a good one.
- “Forecheck, backcheck, paycheck” — I repeated this to myself and my teammates before most games, and realized that this phrase was applicable to sales:
- Forecheck: reach out and make contacts. The best salespeople get their name out to as many people as possible. Making a sale is numbers’ game, and if you want it, you have to go get it.
- Backcheck: creating true relationships and meaningful business contacts requires follow up after the initial outreach
- Paycheck: do the two ^ above consistently, and eventually you will be successful
“No one ever said that once hockey becomes a job, you have to stifle why you fell for it in the first place. After all, who would ever claim that drive and passion are mutually exclusive. And who would ever argue that for them, a love of the game would ever be a disadvantage.” (YouTube)
As Former Chief of Staff at Google Ann Hiatt once said at a conference, protect the one thing that energizes you at all costs- it may not be hockey, but each of us has that one thing that helps reset and center, and it could be the difference between ordinary and extraordinary.
