You may wonder what athletes and salespeople have in common – it’s more than you think. Whether you’re trying to win on the field or in the field, sales people and athletes have many common characteristics. Think of the superstar athletes you idolized when you were growing up. Maybe you dreamed of making slam dunks like Michael Jordan, winning Wimbledon like Serena Williams, or hitting home runs like Ken Griffey, Jr. You recognized in them what so many others have too – not only do they have the talent to succeed, they have the drive to make it happen.

Athletes thrive on competition, using it as a motivator to heighten their own games. This is what athletes and salespeople have in common. You may never play in the Super Bowl or the World Cup, but you can take a page out of these superstars’ win-at-all-costs playbook when it comes to sales motivation.

To be successful in a competitive atmosphere, similar qualities, disciplines, and tactics to top athletes are required. Here are the top common traits amongst sales people and athletes.

1. Persistence

When Michael Jordan was in high school in North Carolina, he was already a talented basketball player, but his coaches didn’t recognize just how talented he was. When he tried out for his varsity team, he didn’t make the cut, and he was placed on the B-Team instead. Rather than let that get him down, he kept at it and eventually went on to be regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time. This kind of persistence is key in sales motivation. In sales, you may hear “no” a lot. When you’re just starting out, you’re likely going to hear it a lot more than often than you hear “yes”. You can’t let it discourage you, and you can’t give up.

2. Discipline

Tiger Woods was a golf prodigy who began playing when he was two years old and could outplay many professionals before he was in his teens. Despite these innate gifts and all the accolades he’s received, Woods still practiced endlessly growing up and continues to this day. In order to be the very best in sales, you need to have the discipline to work hard every day, to put in the hours it takes to be successful. 

3. Competitive Spirit

“I am the greatest,” Muhammad Ali once said. “I said that even before I knew I was.” There’s a reason why Ali is the most legendary boxer of all time. Sure, he’s immensely skilled and talented, but that’s true of a lot of other boxers too. But Ali is as famous for his confidence and competitive spirit as for his boxing acumen. It’s that kind of fighting spirit that’s going to serve as prime sales motivation and take you far in this industry. There’s a lot of other people out there trying to make a sale – you have to want it more.

4. Drive

Perhaps no athlete best exemplifies the drive you need to succeed in sports than Serena Williams. Growing up in Compton, Williams did not have the advantages that a lot of successful young tennis champions do. But today she earns tens of millions of dollars in endorsements every year and she holds the all-time record in countless tennis achievements, from Grand Slams to U.S. Open wins to singles matches. Today, many consider Williams not just the greatest female athlete or the greatest tennis player, but the greatest athlete of all time. The drive to succeed like Serena Williams is part of what athletes and salespeople have in common. No matter what advantages you start off with, you take what you’re given and make it work. 

5. Focus on Winning

There’s probably no professional sports team that most exemplifies winning more than the New York Yankees. They’ve appeared in 40 World Series (twice the amount of the next best team) and they’ve won 27 of them (far more than twice the amount of the next best team). Whether it’s the era of Ruth and Gehrig or DiMaggio and Mantle or Jeter and A-Rod, there’s no period in baseball in which the New York Yankees weren’t considered the top dog. That unrivaled degree of success should serve as prime sales motivation for any salesperson. No matter what team you root for, you want to win like the Yankees.

6. Resilience

You can take lessons from teams that aren’t quite as successful as the Yankees too. For 108 years, the Chicago Cubs were renowned as the “lovable losers” of American sports. No professional sports team in America has ever gone that long without winning a championship. Some claimed they were cursed, others just accepted they didn’t have the money to compete with big market teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers, and many accepted the Cubs were always destined to lose… and then came 2016 and one of the most memorable World Series of all time. This resilience is part of what athletes and salespeople have in common. Setbacks happen, and sometimes they’re unavoidable. The key is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back out there. Eventually, you’ll succeed.

7. Constant Improvement

At the 1936 Olympics, when Jesse Owens set the world record of running a 100 meter dash in 10.2 seconds, it was an astounding world record achievement that made Owens one of the most celebrated athletes of all time. It’s a record that has since been broken over 50 times. Athletes are never satisfied that the best has already been achieved: they’re always ready to run faster, be stronger, and accomplish more. That’s what athletes and salespeople have in common. No matter what level of success you feel you’ve reached in this industry, there are always opportunities to do better, to work harder. This constant drive to do your best can work as powerful sales motivation.

We’re not all blessed with the amazing physical gifts of these superstar athletes. But hard work and determination are not things you’re born with, they’re things you work toward. Using these amazing athletes as your sales motivation can be the first steps to an amazing sales career.

Grit is a mysterious and powerful mix of passion and perseverance that gives some the strength to keep going where so many others before them have given up. In fact, studies have shown that grit may outrank either intelligence or talent as an indicator of future success. Salespeople know a lot about grit. They work in a competitive business, but for those with the grit to stick with it, the rewards can be huge. The best salespeople know that grit can be the secret ingredient that makes the difference between success and failure.

Here’s how grit can make good salespeople great:

• Persistence: To get good at sales you have to become okay with rejection. You have to hear “no” enough times that you finally figure out why people say no and what you can do to get a “yes.” People who thrive in sales are the ones who can persist, persevere, and learn to embrace the word no as a challenge to identify what will get the “yes”. To them, no is just another exciting challenge to overcome. Salespeople with grit are the ones who brush themselves off and wonder how many more people they can meet with before the sun goes down.

• Self-belief: Salespeople with grit tough it out by trusting their guts and believing they can make it no matter what anybody else thinks. Only the gritty keep moving forward regardless of the obstacles that may stand in their way.

• Long-term perspective: Salespeople, must be able to envision that future. Achieving long term goals means keeping your eye on the prize, and having grit means you focus on doing what it takes to win, overcoming hurdles and celebrating wins along the way.

• Unwavering Courage: Successful salespeople are fearless. They take pleasure in achieving the hard things, and they welcome the unknown. They want to overcome weaknesses, revel in change, and capitalize on their strengths. Salespeople with grit get out of their comfort zones in order to realize their dreams.

• Endurance: Having grit means having the stamina to follow through on your promise to yourself, and finish what you’ve started. It’s an attitude of always finishing what you start.

• Owning it: In the sales business, excuses won’t get you very far. It’s the effort you put out, your commitment, and your unwillingness to give up that will determine your success. The ones who succeed in sales are those who are accountable for their own actions.

• A Winning Attitude: To beat the odds, you have to ban negative thinking and immerse yourself your passion for your work. True grit takes keeping self-doubt, fear, frustration, and even disappointment from derailing you. It takes an absolute belief in yourself and confidence that with hard work, you can achieve your dreams.

• Drive: Leaders in sales will tell you that to accomplish something extraordinary, you must remember why you’re doing it. You have to stay connected to the things that are most important to you, because they are the things that will make all the hard work worth it in the end. The most successful salespeople never forget what they’re working towards.

Intelligence and talent are huge advantages in business that can help you innovate, perform well, or solve problems. Without the grit to stay the course even when it gets bumpy, those advantages can be fleeting. Brains and natural ability are the reason many people are good at their jobs, but without the grit to overcome challenges, bounce back from stumbles, and the drive to push themselves further, they may never truly be great.