You Never Settle Until...

The snooker world championship is as thrilling as ever. You can see how the game is slowly but surely spreading. There's already reportedly been an incredible TV audience on CCTV5 for the blockbuster all-chinese Second Round affair of 180 million.

The former champs I hear commentate usually put other sports to shame. Many are terrific.

Listening to one in particular - the 90s-dominant Scot, Stephen Hendry - is a lesson itself on the art of matchplay. Often with so many crossovers for how you ought best approach any competitive situation.

Of his many nuggets, this one caught my ear.

The context being that unlike other tournament formats, the Worlds mean multi-session matches. Comprising eight or nine frames apiece, split in half by a short mid-session interval after four.

To précis the (joint modern-day format record-holding 7-time) champ;

'To say you never settle until you've won your first frame of the session is misleading. I never settled 'til winning my first frame in one visit.'

This instantly struck me as also spot on in Sales.

I have seen salespeople celebrate every moment they consider a 'win'.

Yet this too can be delusory.

I understand the impetus to be positive. But this should not come at the expense of knowing what truly matters. And the only things that count are those actions which marry along our process which uniquely takes the prospect along the route to signing with us.

As in the case here on the baize, anything that we perceive as 'progress' is one thing, but that which aligns to our process is quite another thing altogether.