Five Things Hockey Teaches You About Marketing

What’s on the iPod: Strange Girl by The Airborne Toxic Event


For a Monday, it was pretty busy yesterday. I had a list waiting from a client, and I managed all but one item, which isn’t back from the client’s client yet. I’m hoping to wrap that up today. I’m also in a holding pattern: a new client hasn’t returned the contract yet. When they do, I can begin. Until then, I market for other clients.

As I watched my beloved Penguins fold like a house of cards a few weeks back, I didn’t consider then how much hockey can teach us about marketing. Turns out there’s plenty about the sport that can be used to improve marketing. For example:

The more pucks shot on the net, the higher the likelihood of a goal. This one is rather obvious. If you market consistently, your odds of securing clients and projects increase. You can send out one note a day or a dozen in a week — it’s that you repeat your efforts the following week and the week after that and so on that makes the difference.

The more you practice, the better you become. Wayne Gretzky didn’t become a superb hockey player because he was born with the ability to play. He had to work at it. If you market every day, you develop and refine your message.

Home ice advantage is a real advantage. You just play better in your own comfort zone. Likewise your writing — your strength lies in trusting your own skills and allowing yourself to propose projects and meet prospective clients as an equal. If you trust in your own abilities, you can face your client with more confidence.

Penalties are real disadvantages. Not that you’d body slam a client or hit them with a high stick, but you can fail to follow through on marketing — not following up, letting too much time pass between communications, forgetting to present your best pitch, etc. And just imagine how much you’ve been penalized by inertia.

The Stanley Cup is heavy to lift, but no one ever complains. Sure, marketing is going to be challenging, and it may even cause you to take risks you wouldn’t normally take. But the prize — whether it be opening up a new area of specialization or securing that article assignment from the magazine of your dreams, etc.– is so worth it.

What else can hockey — or any sport — teach you about your marketing?