How Pickleball Can Make You a Better Business Owner

Running a successful business requires commitment, thoughtful strategy, and tenacity—all things that grow or improve over time through consistent effort and study. This also describes another respectable endeavor: pickleball. At the intersection of badminton, tennis, and ping-pong is pickleball, one of Washington’s biggest contributions to to the world.

Contrary to what you might think, there’s a surprising amount of overlap in skills between being an entrepreneur and being great at the fastest growing sport in the U.S. Here’s how pickleball can make make you a better business owner.

What pickleball can teach business owners

It’s been said that the best business owners consider lessons from all areas of their life to improve the way they run their organizations. There are plenty of lessons pickleball can teach business owners looking to establish or grow their business:

Practice makes perfect

While pickleball and business can both be pretty accessible these days, you might be put through the ringer when you’re just getting started. Don’t be discouraged if you lose some rounds and burn some time during the learning phase. Even the individuals that make up the Bay Area Breakers and the Seattle Pioneers, the neck-and-neck champions of Major League Pickleball (MLP) as of the date of this post, started off as new players to the game at one point.

Learn from your mistakes and capitalize on those lessons with every opportunity you’re handed. Remember that the more you practice anything, the more your skills grow.

Respect the rules (of the kitchen)

We might be stretching this metaphor a bit, but understanding the rules of the game is how you avoid the most painful lessons. In pickleball, the kitchen, or non-volley zone, is the seven foot space on either side of the net. To avoid penalty, you’ll need to refrain from hitting a return before the ball bounces if you’re standing in this space.

As a business owner, you should understand and diligently obey the compliance laws and standards of your industry. If you’re selling something edible, you’ll need to adhere to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines.

The power of the dink

The dink (not to be confused with Ben Stiller’s upcoming film, although that’s also about pickleball) is a soft, controlled return meant to command the flow of the match and drive your opponents to where you want them. A solid dink proves that intentional moves can turn the tides of even the most uneven games.

As a business owner, the small improvements and adjustments you apply have the tendency to accumulate over time, which can make you a force of nature in your industry. A great example would be building a website for your food truck business to post your locations in order to drive more traffic to varying popups. Honor the little wins. Respect the dink.

Adaptability

Just like any team sport, the best pickleball players can adapt to novel situations and unforeseen challenges. You can’t always predict the direction an opposing player will send the ball in, just like a CEO can’t always predict how their company performs during the next season. Being able to roll with the punches and and rework your strategy based on things you can’t anticipate is a skill you’ll need on the court and in business.

Collaboration

The most popular pickleball configuration is the double, or 2 vs 2. Not only does this make for a more interesting dynamic, it creates an environment where teammates can learn from one another. When you’re running a business with more than one person, like a general partnership, multi-member LLC or corporation, you depend on your partner to contribute in their role and to help you develop your own skills.

If you want to be a good business partner, or an effective doubles teammate, you’ll need to be a strong collaborator. Be open to ideas other than your own, respect the areas where your partner may be more skilled than you are, and show gratitude for the points the rest of your team scores.

Tactical and strategic thinking

Sure, you could jump onto a pickleball court (or into a new business venture) with no idea what you’re doing and wing it, but it’s not recommended. While improvisation is technically a strategy in and of itself, more thoughtful and intelligent tactics exist in both pickleball and business.

Researching the industry you’re entering into well and preparing a comprehensive strategy or business plan to succeed in it is not unlike learning the best serve return strategies on the p-ball court. Choose proper planning over brute force, and it’ll pay off in the long run.

While we don’t employ any professional pickleball coaches (yet), Northwest has all the expertise you need to succeed as a business owner. If you need legal forms, we’ve got you covered. If you’re ready to strengthen your business identity with a domain name and branded email address, we can help you out with that as well. Reach out to us today!

Enjoy the game

The most important lesson to take away from business ownership and the game of pickleball, is to enjoy the flow. Develop strong strategies, be a great team member, trust the process for improvement, and have fun along the way. Here’s to your next serve and your business being a winning play.