Running a Business and Coaching a Basketball Team are Similar

March 13: As March Madness approaches this got me to thinking about the similarities between running a successful basketball program and leading a successful business.

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By John Bernardi

Are KPIs Your Catch-22?

KPIs Can Be A Catch-22

People Will Behave

Processes Will Be Implemented

Based On What You Measure

If you are unable to measure what is important, you will communicate importance to the things that you can measure, which may be sending people and processes in the wrong direction.

Important Vs. Urgent: CEO Dilemma

Late Bloomers Are Ready To Do Their Best Work

Are You A Late Blooming Business Professional?

When it comes to business, I've often been a late bloomer.  Today I'm a boomer that's been honed into a talented business professional.  At the top of my game I am discretely driven by what's right, not who's right, which gives me the confidence to challenge my clients.

Are you a baby boomer who has been incorrectly positioned by others as having their best behind them? [Senior tour golfers earn more than when they played on the PGA tour].

There are lots of boomers out there ready to do their best work ever.

By John Bernardi

Create Easy Paths For Risk Averse Sales Reps

Top tier sales reps continually stretch their comfort zones.  They gain confidence by enhancing their professional and technical skills.  They focus on expanding their horizontal and vertical contacts within their accounts.  They smartly approach new prospects in unfamiliar industries and territories. They represent their entire product line and are always searching for new applications. They create and tell Success Stories that prove how customers enjoy significant results by overcoming challenges through the solutions they provide. 

Mid-tier reps risk daily disappointment from their status quo strategy.  Instead, they should expand their comfort zones to smoothly navigate an uncontrollable sea of customers, competition, economy and their own companies.

An integrated sales and marketing leadership team can make it emotionally easier for these safety seekers by cuing them into areas where top performers have blazed a path for them.  They can tailor these ideas to their own style, which enables originality and authenticity.

At a minimum, mid-tier reps should retell success stories of top performers as they develop confidence and skills to develop their own.  This content will expand their horizons and they will find it less risky to look for similar opportunities and apply similar solutions because others have blazed the path for them.

Build a portfolio of online press releases and success stories fit for the moment.  Make this part of ongoing sales training and an agenda item during all sales meetings.  Online Press Releases reveal why a customer or partner has selected your company.  Success Stories prove that you delivered on your promise. Video Testimonials make the story real.  

Another Reason Why Business Schools Should Teach History

Self Fulfilling Prophesies Work Both Ways

If you expect a positive outcome, you are on the right track. If you expect a negative outcome, you'll be subconsciously influencing that result as well.

Today's high school and college students have yet to experience a healthy economy.  They're used to hearing about fiscal cliffs, high unemployment, a tough job market, belt tightening, outsourcing, etc.  Has this become their self-fulfilling prophecy because that's what they've come to expect?  Let's hope it's not engrained in their muscle memory.

I believe that a holistic business curriculum can foster their positive self fulfilling prophecy? If we teach business students about the history of the cycles our economy has traversed, they'll be better equipped to believe that they can influence future good times.

If we can create positive self-fulfilling prophecies in these future leaders, they will be wanting to innovate, undertake risk, invest, etc.  They will have a positive, enthusiastic attitude and will enjoy their careers.  And they'll get our economy back on track for the long term.

Here's an intersting article on Self-fulfilling prophecy by Carolyn Kaufman, Psy.D. in Psychology for Writers

Business Students Should Study History

Business schools should cull relevant history into snippets that form the basis of a course on strategies and leadership.  This history can be applied in business situations where there's a need to leverage an opportunity or confront a threat.

A great example is the strategy that Teddy Roosevelt used to influence the building of a 50 mile canal that would cross the Colombian isthmus of Panama and unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  The 13,000 mile New York to San Francisco journey took months as ships navigated around the treacherous Cape Horn. A canal would save hundreds of miles and man-hours.  Even President Ulysses Grant had sent seven expeditions to study its feasibility.

Roosevelt tried to negotiate with Columbia, but Colombia eventually lost interest. Then, Roosevelt and Panamanian business leaders collaborated on a revolution. The Battle for Panama lasted less than a day as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms and the U.S.S. Nashville cruised off the Panamanian coast in a show of support.  On November 3, 1903, the nation of Panama was born.  The rest is history. This is an example of an indirect approach to achieve a goal.

An indirect strategy might be the best approach in certain opportunity management, market penetration, market development and product development situations.  Holden International teaches about indirect strategy in managing sales opportunities in its book, Power Base Selling.

Business Owners Fit the 80/20 Rule

Pareto's Rule 

Applies To Business Owners

 

 

 20% Have These Characteristics

• Their communication style establishes trust, honesty and dependability
• They follow through on their commitments
• They're not distracted because they behave like CEOs rather than employees
• They don't flinch when an unexpected situation occurs
  
• They have courage to take advantage of defining moments
  
• Positive change trumps the status quo
• They look for opportunities to expand comfort zones - personal and company 
• They build an action culture of great execution
• They build processes that encourage the right actions

Easiest Time To Improve Is When Things Are Going Well

Don't Miss the Opportunity To Raise the Bar During Good Times

Have you noticed when things aren't going so well your peripheral vision shrinks and you don't pay attention to opportunities for improvement?

With this in mind, shouldn't we make every effort to improve when things are going well?  More discretionary funds become available. Higher confidence levels are evident throughout the organization. There tends to be less risk avoidance and more willingness to expand comfort zones. Positive attitudes begin to take over.

Continue to raise the bar and elevate to the next level of something, whether it be customer experience, profitability, marketing process, team participation levels, efficiency ...

The Top 20% Are looking to Raise The Bar At All Times

Even when their economy isn't doing well

Likeability Vs. Desirability

Likeability and/or Desirability

Essential Traits for Being Selected

To me, likeability reveals DNA for building a strong network and bringing out the best in others, while desirability is earned by delivering a beneficial result, or providing advantage or pleasure.

What is the golden ratio of desirability [a] to likeability [b]?  Can desirable people thrive with a low likeability factor?  How brightly must their product or service shine as the obvious choice to buyers?  Are they artificially likeable for as long as they continue to help their customers look good based on the excellent results produced by their product or service?

Can likeable people survive for a longer period of time when their products or services aren't always the obvious choice?

How would you want your [a] and [b] to be rated by your customers, prospects and channel partners?

It's Not Micromanaging

Do Employees Say You're Micromanaging Them?

Ever had an employee whose inner child sets you on your heels when they say "you're micro managing me"?

Here's a basketball analogy that you can use to differentiate micromanaging from what you're really doing.

The Right Approach to Practice Optimizes Chances to Win

The best coach/manager leadership persona has vision to structure the team and design a style of play that integrates cohesive rhythm on offense with intensive continuity on defense by players who execute as a seamless unit through teamwork and communication.

The coaching staff avoids ambiguity by breaking down each play in order to transform goals into individual responsibilities and specific steps.  Multidimensional, skilled players fit this style of play each season.  They have strong fundamentals [shoot, pass, dribble, create floor balance, move the ball, move without the ball, exploit mismatches, know when to dish or shoot].

Professionals welcome the opportunity to participate in hours of film sessions listening to coaches and team mates candidly criticize their game and identify opportunities to improve their game.  Imagine if they viewed this as micromanaging?

Sales Rep Optimism - Key to Winning

After watching today's 5-minute video on SellingPower.com, I thought about the psychologist's one-sided premise. I'd like to present Side B to complement his hypothesis.  He took the employer-centric view because he wants to sell candidate evaluation services.  He suggests that companies must look for people who have optimism built into their DNA because it can't be taught.  I agree, but I also believe that there are company-centric and transactionally oriented companies like Oracle, HP, EMC, Sprint, Salesforce.com and many others that cause sales reps who are naturally optimistic to suppress this trait because they just can bring themselves to opt-in.

It's likely that an innately optimistic sales person with the necessary professional and technical skills along with a natural competitive drive will produce average results if their company does not possess its own DNA traits that build employee and customer allegiance.  Otherwise, sales reps won't commit their personal resources, only their time and physical energy.  Yuck!

Business Development In Its Basic Form

Find Ways To Win Today

While Building For The Future

Allow your business to be the best it can be by answering four basic questions every day:

1. What will my business look like in a couple of years if I continue to run it in its current form?
2. What could I be doing today to improve short term results?
3. What would I like my business to look like in 2 to 3 years?
4. Will short term results subsidize my company's future?

Now, you're ready to define business development's role for your business.