Grow Your Business

The NCAA was tired of watching Lew Alcindor beat opponents by dunking the ball over their heads effortlessly, so they outlawed dunking in college basketball. Coach John Wooden talked with a distraught Alcindor and told him to forget what was and focus on what is. He then encouraged him to find a different way to shoot, thus the Sky Hook was created. When Alcindor turned pro where dunking was legal he was doubly equipped to score over opponents with two deadly shots.

We need to focus more on what is and what will be than in what was.

Business owners are still wishing for a return to how things used to be, wishing for the clock to roll back to the good times. Forget what was; let’s deal with winning with what is.

Be in the present

I am asked frequently about what can be done to win in the present times. Here are my tips for finding success in the current economic climate. It all starts with the fundamentals.

Stop comparing

Businesses have a habit of comparing this year with the year before, the best year, the worst year and the same month of the previous year. Forget it. The comparisons are unfair. Why are they unfair? Because they are not comparing equals. New businesses come to town, traffic patterns change, economic shifts happen beyond your control, and buying habits of consumers change. Sadly in good times we loved those comparisons because they improved (frequently beyond our control) and we loved the ride. Today those comparisons beat us down. To borrow from John Wooden once again – forget the winning and the bottom line. Take care of performing the fundamentals with excellence and the winning will take care of itself.

Focus forward

Looking at what used to be isn’t going to get us where we are going when the business world is so different. The rules of engagement have changed when dealing with employees, customers, vendors, and investors. Today’s times require a renewed focus on where you are going and what tools are the best to use to get you there. An Internet presence has never been more important than today, the ability to make changes rapidly has never been as necessary as today, and being able to find the hidden pockets or revenue has never been as important in your business’s lifecycle as right now.

It’s time to navigate where you are going not where you have been.

Hard work and hustle

With the advance of technology greater demand is placed on small businesses to keep up on all fronts; and it seems fronts keep adding on! Not only do you have to be on the front page of a Google search, you need to have a solid presence in social media and have multiple sites, and that is just in the online marketplace.
I hear all the time from small business owners, “How am I going to get everything done?” In this economy where everyone is going after scarce dollars the winners are those who out-hustle and out-work the competition. Many businesses got away from the basics in the good times. Now it’s time to ramp up the effort, energy and commitment.

Try stuff

If you aren’t experimenting, innovating and trying new things on a daily basis your business will constantly be playing catch up. Forget perfection. Forget trying to find a groove. Try stuff and embrace the volatility of change and you will see your victories returning like it used to be.

Technology is amazing how it can transform tasks and the flow of information. Without technology we wouldn’t be able to operate at the speed with which business moves today. Although technology has transformed our daily tasks, it has not replaced these critical components of success I’ve noticed lacking in the technological world. In fact, technology may even hinder these important pieces of success.

Hustle

Drive

Persistence

The ability to communicate

Interpersonal skills

Focus

Discipline

Commitment

Attitude

Belief in oneself

The next time you want to learn a new app for your technology; consider relearning one of these old apps instead. I believe the more hustle app will help your personal success much more than the TMZ app for your phone.

Why do they call it March Madness? Did you watch the amazing basketball games this weekend? There were more amazing upsets that hats in church on Easter. These upsets once again prove that the experts don’t always know what they are talking about and no matter the odds; the little guys can beat the big guys at their own game.

It doesn’t just have to happen on the basketball court.

The little guys can’t out-spend or out-locate the larger competitors, so how can you act like the basketball teams winning the upsets?

Have the confidence to your core that you can win

Never has an overwhelmed team won a game when their pre-game thought of – we are going to get smashed. They all came out with the attitude of proving the experts wrong and giving it their best performance.

Look around, are your team members giving it their best performance? Are they bought-in to the concept of winning against the odds? Are they acting like deep down they have something to prove?

Deliver a great performance

Many top organizations are like many highly ranked basketball teams: They have so much talent they can overcome a periodic bad performance. In business I see large companies make money in spite of themselves, purely by volume and size.

The little guys know they don’t have that room to be sloppy. To win you have to be delivering a top performance and hope to catch the favored team in a low performance day. That combination is how big upsets happen (right Kansas?)

There is nothing you can do about when you catch the other guys sleeping, the only think you can control is delivery your great performance to give yourself a chance.

Focus on the little things.

In college basketball it is well known that defense and free throws win important games. Neither is going to show up on a highlight reel of spectacular dunks but to put a basketball spin on a golf saying; you dunk for show and defend for dough. The little guys do the little things well when they win the big games.

Small business owners, use the March Madness upsets as the inspiration for how to bring down the big competitors and create your own upsets. It’s time for some March Madness worth cheering about in our economy as well.

Lance Armstrong is a winner, no doubting that. Warren Buffet is an investment success story without question. Steve Jobs has successfully created businesses that achieve greatness. Was it just luck these individuals perform at the highest levels of their chosen professions? Was it a special mental gift they possess no one else has?

There is no doubting these three successful men have special talents that helped them to succeed, but the one common trait I see in successful leaders, these three included, is confidence. I’ve heard people respond to this notion with, “Well if I had won 7 Tour de France races, was worth billions of dollars, or owned all of the music known to man I could sell for a dollar a song, I’d be confident too!”

Which do you think came first the confidence or the success?

To fully achieve success one must possess the confidence to first believe it can happen, and then have additional confidence to make it happen. Consider the general attitude in this country right now. If you believe the press this country is in doom and gloom with no end in sight. That is the easy mental option; just cave in to the pressure and roll over until it passes. Sadly, many businesses are responding in exactly that fashion. How are you responding?

Remember the leader is the one who sets the expectation the rest of the management team will follow. Are you leading from a position of strength?

Confidence means being able to look at the bad news, accept it as is, and devise a plan to overcome it. Confidence means the leader is commitment and convinced the organization he or she leads will emerge from this recession even better than when they entered the recession. Confidence is having the strength to make the necessary efforts to operate a business in spite of the negative news surrounding them. Leaders who are confident see the proper steps to take in order to be stronger, faster and more profitable.

There is a significant difference between the confidence to make the right decisions and the bravado to try and convince people the decisions made were right. Without any research to support this opinion other than personal observation over the last 25 years in business, I believe those who have the confidence to make proper business decisions frequently make the exact right decision. Conversely, it is also my observation that the manager who is insecure and lacks true confidence regardless of the amount of bluster and bravado they spew seems to possess the innate ability to most often select the wrong decision.

It isn’t a curious coincidence that successful people are confident in what they do, it is essential they have that confidence to achieve that success.