Last week I talked about the dedication similarities between salespeople and athletes, and ended with saying that there are more similarities between the two groups. The second part to that little passage is the similarity between handling rejection.
One of the main things a salesperson needs to be good at is handling rejection, because it is impossible to close every deal with all the people that you come in contact with. Although it stinks to be rejected, that is just part of being a salesperson. According to the same blog that I used for my last post, athletes are also good at handling rejection. They talk about how “normal people” would think of athletes as super optimistic in order to be goof at playing their desired sport, but that is actually not the case. Many athletes have low optimism when playing their sport because they are preparing themselves for failure (rejection). They also do this so they can push themselves to be bigger and better and not settling for anything less. Being a sales person is very similar. Not being too optimistic is a good thing because it won’t be as much of a let down when they do not close a sale.
This was just another great example of how athletes would make awesome salespeople and how the two are just so similar!
duzx20 
Molly McCommons 
Elias Reay
Hmm, I’ve never thought of that particular aspect of being too optimistic. I have heard of it being bad in other senses, such as not being real with yourself, but not this one. I agree though, it makes sense. I guess this is a way of not being real with yourself. And this isn’t the first time I’ve heard people say that the two are similar. My brother’s company looks to hire college athletes because they typically have better mindsets and can handle rejection.