For many of my adult years I have worked in a competitive work environment.

That’s the nature of the media world.  TV shows are wanting more viewers than the other shows, and radio stations want more listeners than the other stations.

Half of my media life was spent in the sales world and there the competition really heats up.

Some sales managers (no matter what the business) think that competition between members of the sales team will make everyone perform better.

But if you look at the results, you’ll find that sales contests are often a waste of time and energy.  Not all salespeople are motivated by winning for themselves.

That’s me.  I could care less if my sales manager ran a contest if it was contrary to my style of selling.

My style of sales was to be a bridge between what was good for my customer and what was good for my company.  I called it Win/Win/Win.  The customer wins, I win and my company wins.

Most of the salespeople we enjoy working with are the ones who have an interest in what would be best for us, not what will give them the most benefit.

Currently I work on a team and we are involved in sales, but we function as a team.  We are not competing with each other, instead, all 6 of us have a combination of talents and areas of expertise.

We’ve got Jeff who is our tech geek, Jason, our Graphic Designer, Dan who designs our email, Christy who handles affiliate relations and Keith who heads our Internet Marketing Department.  What do I do?  I’m the Social Media guy.

We each have separate and distinct duties,  But we also have each others backs.  We will brainstorm and bounce ideas off of each other, proof each others work, and there is someone else on our team who can fill in for someone else if that is needed in a pinch.

Sure, we are competitive, but not against each other.  We want to win when compared with what we did last week, last month, last year, or sometimes last hour.

What about you and your team? How do you balance Team Work with Team Competition?