By now the series is probably over, but as of a couple days prior to my writing this, the Lakers appear a little vulnerable against the Magic.
In the Lakers’ game three loss, the Magic seemed to focus a little more and work a little harder on fundamentals than the Lakers. As a result, their shooting improved and nothing the Lakers and Kobe could do would stop them.
That 46 inch vertical leap you have is pretty meaningless if you can’t make a layup or a free throw. It doesn’t help if you can’t (or won’t) play defense, and it’s useless if you can’t make your way across the court without someone stealing the ball from you.
In martial arts, it doesn’t matter if you can do that crane move from the Karate Kid movie if you don’t have the fundamentals down. You’ll get stomped before you even get to a point where you can try it.
Small businesses have the same issues to deal with: Focus on the important stuff. Fundamentals.
They are easy to ignore because they are so obvious, sitting right there in front of you.
Attention to fundamentals is something Coach Vince Lombardi started every season with. “This is a football”, he would say. Not to talk down to his players, but to start every season by training the mind and body on the fundamentals that all else builds upon.
As I see businesses struggle with sales, customer retention, customer service and effective marketing, more often than not, I see them ignoring lessons in fundamentals from “old gray haired guys” (women too).
When I say old, of course I mean “much older than me” , kinda like you do. Why listen to lessons from those older folks? Experience.
Experienced business people tend to make fewer mistakes. But where do you get experience? From making mistakes. Hmmm.
If you look to the wisdom of those who came before you, you’ll find that experience’s price is a lot lower. Someone else has already paid the price for that mistake, so why not learn from them rather than making the mistake (and gaining the experience) yourself?
I’m speaking of guys like Zig Ziglar (born 1926), Jim Rohn (born 1930), John Earl Shoaff (born 1916, died 1965) and Earl Nightingale (born 1921, died 1989). In addition to these guys, there are plenty of others living or dead that offer plenty of wisdom learned from expensive mistakes.
Cool thing is, you can learn them for little or nothing.
Yeah, I know. Those dudes are either really old or long gone. I know what you’re thinking.
You’re 23 (33, 43 or 53), an entrepreneur and you might think that there’s nothing some crusty old geezer can teach you about business, sales, marketing, people or heaven forbid – yourself.
After all, we’ve got 15 megabit internet, iPhones, TomTom and so forth. Surely these guys would freak out if they had access to the tools you have.
You’re absolutely right, they didn’t have those things. Don’t make the big mistake of looking at it that way.
When these generations found problems they needed to solve, they didn’t have computers, iPhones, the Internet, DVDs, hand-held video recorders, television and so on.
So what did they do? They *invented* those tools.
Here’s an example of one of the things those old guys teach: “To get everything you want, help someone else get everything *they* want.” (That one is Zig’s)
Simple. Powerful. Drop dead easy to implement in your business and *without* a huge capital expenditure.
Right now, what do your clients want more than anything?
Whether your clients are businesses or consumers (I detest that word), the answer – while not the same for both groups, is screamingly obvious.
You can easily find a way to leverage that idea so that it creates revenue opportunities for your business. Think about it.
Meanwhile, I suggest that you spend some time learning about those four men and the things they teach. There’s a ton of free content by these men on the net. Google is your friend.
I really can’t make a better suggestion to you in *any* economy than to discard your prejudices and just listen to them (and their female peers as well).
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.