“And the reason I thought this was relevant for a sales tip, is that nobody summits Everest alone.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 182
I think we think of sales as a solo sport, but the reality is it’s very much a team sport, just like climbing Everest.
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List of people who died climbing Mount Everest
Definition of Summit
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I thought I’d share a few thoughts with you after having read the book: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, which is his personal account of the Mt. Everest Disaster in 1996. While I can’t say I loved hearing about the disaster parts and some of the quite vivid details of how people died on the mountain. It certainly gave you a sense of just how dangerous an undertaking the feat really is. In the show notes at DailySales.Tips/182, I’ll include a link to the Wikipedia article that lists all of the people who have died climbing Mount Everest, which after another bad year this year is over 300 people long.
What really fascinated me, though, was just how intense the undertaking really is. The process takes a couple of months, and a lot of that time is just acclimating to the high altitude. At one point the author suggests that if it were possible to take someone from sea level and drop them off on the peak they would pretty quickly die since there’s only 1/3 as much oxygen in the air as there is a sea level.
Perhaps most interesting, and the reason I thought this was relevant for a sales tip, is that nobody summits Everest alone. There are the sherpas, which I learned is actually an ethnic group and not a job description in my pre-reading ignorance. Then there are guides and teammates, and perhaps most importantly the people who have done it before. That opportunity to learn from those who have been to the top, often multiple times, is critical.
Too often I think we think of sales as a solo sport, but the reality is it’s very much a team sport, just like climbing Everest.
It was also fun to think about this in the build-up to the Sales Success Summit. Really until reading this book, I’d thought of Summit in terms of the definition that is a conference of high-level officials. It’s interesting to think of it in terms of the other definition that is the peak, the apex and the topmost level attainable (Thanks Merriam Webster for all of that). I’m even thinking about putting together an acclimation set of resources for those who are planning to attend to spend time with in the weeks leading up to the Summit where they can go back and listen to the detailed conversations I’ve had with those who will be presenting, or even just attending as part of their ascent team to make the actual two day experience that much more impactful.
Anyway, I hope that was useful. Great book if you’re at all interested in what it takes to climb the world’s highest peak and then be sure to come back tomorrow because I’ve got another related thought that further explores the idea of sales being a team sport and how we all might be able to help each other achieve more together.
Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.