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What Sales Reps Can Learn From Boxing Promoters
The sales hacks they use to make millions of people care and buy
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Good morning! A new study says 32% of new hires plan to quit soon, and that number jumps to 48% if their onboarding was bad… Which basically makes onboarding churn look worse than your pipeline in August. And just like a bad deal, most of the fallout comes from setting the wrong expectations upfront. Promise too much, deliver too little, and people bounce. There’s a sales lesson in there somewhere. Now let’s get into today’s Follow Up. (:
‘Let me run this by the team.’ 👀
Sales lessons from Boxing promoters 🗣️
15 questions to ask prospects ✍️
Sales jobs & a meme 😂
Sales Tip of The Day 💡
When a prospect keeps saying, “Let me run this by my team,” push back on it.
❌ “Of course! Let me know what they say.”
✅ “Totally. Before you do, what part of this do you think they’ll push back on the most?”
This forces them to think about the likely objections, and gives you a chance to respond to them.
You can’t be in the internal meeting, but you can arm your champion with the answers to objections.
How to Choose the Right Voice AI for Regulated Industries
Explore how enterprise teams are scaling Voice AI across 100+ locations—without compromising on compliance.
This guide breaks down what secure deployment really takes, from HIPAA and GDPR alignment to audit logs and real-time encryption.
See how IT, ops, and CX leaders are launching secure AI agents in weeks, not months, and reducing procurement friction with SOC 2–ready platforms.
What Sales Reps Can Steal from Boxing Promoters
Boxing promoters are master salespeople.
Like… really, really good at sales.
They take two people punching each other and turn it into a global event worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They create stories that make you care about strangers, and then convince millions of people to pay $100 to watch something on TV that they could watch a few hours later for free.
The best promoters can do this because they understand something most salespeople miss: people don't just buy products. They buy stories, emotions, experience, and outcomes.
Today, I’m breaking down 3 sales tactics that you can steal from the best promoters in the world.
The Story over Everything
Great promoters understand that boxing matches need a story to sell.
They create drama about rivalry and redemption. They build up personalities and conflicts that make you buy into the narrative and care about the outcome.
Take the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight. On paper, this was a mismatch. An undefeated boxer against an MMA fighter who had never boxed professionally.
But promoters focused on the clash of personalities. The trash talk. The different fighting worlds colliding. And the confidence of Conor McGregor that actually made you believe he could win.
In sales, you can do the same thing. Tell the story of transformation, instead of just the features and benefits.
Instead of: "Our software reduces manual tracking by 40%,"
Try: "You see this button right here? All you’ve gotta do is click it, and it’s going to automatically pull in all of the data you’re manually grabbing yourself right now. No more copy and pasting. "
People remember stories. They forget statistics.
Match Your Product to the Right Customer
Boxing promoters are also expert matchmakers. They create matchups that sell.
A technical defensive fighter might bore casual fans. But pair him with an aggressive knockout artist, and suddenly you have an exciting contrast of styles.
Promoters know their buyers and what they want to see. Then they deliver exactly that.
Smart salespeople take the same approach. Each prospect gets a pitch based on what they actually care about.
A startup CEO cares about speed and flexibility.
A Fortune 500 executive cares about security and compliance.
Same product, different story.
How To Create Real Urgency
The best promoters make every fight feel like a once-in-a-lifetime event.
They use phrases like "Fight of the Century" and "This will never happen again.", and create artificial scarcity with a pay-per-view product that’s basically worthless after the fight.
Think about that… if you just waited until after the fight happened, you could go online and find out who won, how it ended, and see all of the highlights.
Yet millions of people still pay the $100 to see it in real time.
In sales, you can create similar urgency without being fake about it.
Maybe your implementation team is booking up for the next quarter.
Maybe your pricing is changing next month.
Maybe there's a limited-time bonus you can include that won’t be there next month.
The key is making the urgency real and relevant. Don't manufacture fake deadlines or discounts that will still be around in a month.
Find genuine reasons why acting now makes sense, and then stick to them.
The Authenticity Balance
Here's the important part: great promoters hype fights to the sky, but they don't lie to fans. (or at least the legit ones don’t).
They know that trust is their most valuable asset. Oversell a terrible fight, and fans lose trust in the next one.
The same applies to sales.
You can be enthusiastic and create excitement without being dishonest.
We’re seeing a lot of examples of what not to do with AI tech right now.
Companies promising to replace entire teams or automate an entire department. Meanwhile, the product is barely usable.
Don’t do this. Unless, of course, you couldn't care less about your customers trusting you.
Your reputation is worth more than any single deal or attention.
Which promotion skill do you think works the best? |
