Business Insights

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It isn’t often these days that I find a parallel between business and the sports world, but shock of all shocks, it happened this week. And right in my own backyard here in Kansas City with my hometown Kansas City Chiefs football team.

For those of you unfamiliar with Kansas City, we are a huge sports town. We had a major love affair with our baseball Royals as they provided some of the most memorable playoff battles against those reviled New York Yankees back in the late 1970’s.

Now the Royals consider it an excellent season if they DON’T lose 100 games… and the Chiefs last year were 2 – 14. Being the proud sports city we are, this was rapidly becoming an intolerable situation for the loyal fans.

The Chiefs did finally wise up and fire their general manager as well as their head coach. Todd Haley (who?) was named the Chiefs new head coach. He had been the offensive coordinator for the Arizona Cardinals and was handed the prestigious job of turning around our losing football team.

Todd started out just as we all expected… LOSING! The Chiefs in the preseason are 0-3, and have scored just 2 offensive touchdowns over the past two weeks… IN PRE-SEASON… when you play against the also-ran third stringers much of the game.

And then the unthinkable happened. After the third loss, Haley abruptly fired his offensive coordinator and assumed the position himself. WHY???

First, the firing was due to non-performance. Haley reasoned it doesn’t do much good to keep an offensive coordinator who can’t produce offense. WOW! There’s a novel idea.

Second, “the buck stops here” mentality. Todd knows HE is ultimately responsible for the Chiefs record, and by golly, he decided to do something about it. He stepped in and said “I will assume full responsibility and authority for the results this team achieves moving forward.

HOW REFRESHING! Who is this guy again?

I found it refreshing to actually see someone step up to the plate for a change… admit a mistake had been made… take full and unabashed responsibility for that mistake… and assume the accountability for all future results.

What about you? As a small business owner, you ARE the business, and yet how often do I hear small business owners tell me how the economy is bad… no one is buying anything. Oh woe is me.

Unfortunately for these business owners, the statistics don’t bear out the whining. There are more millionaires made during recessions than during the boom times. Businesses who aggressively spend more money on marketing their business during a recession enjoy a 275% growth pattern over the next 5 years compared to the 19% growth pattern for those that don’t.

Below are some businesses started during a recession. Where are these companies now?

• Burger King Corp.
• IHOP Corp.
• The Jim Henson Company (Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog and Elmo)
• LexisNexis
• FedEx Corp.
• Microsoft Corp.
• CNN
• MTV Networks
• Trader Joe’s
• Wikipedia Foundation Inc.
• Sports Illustrated magazine
• GE (General Electric Co.)
• HP (Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP)

Are you “waiting out” the recession… or tackling it head on?

Are you cutting back your marketing budget… or increasing it so you can pick up unprecedented market share?

Are you seeking out professional help from experts that can assist you in growing your business?

If not… why not? Todd Haley had the guts to admit his mistake as a head coach and stand behind it. As the owner of your business, are you willing to do the same when it applies?

I have the privilege of speaking with hundreds of small business owners every month, and I keep hearing a repeating frustration they all seem to share… “innovation.”

They complain that they basically do the exact same things their competition does, and it forces them into competing with them on price. I keep emphasizing to them that for any business to be successful, and to STOP competing on price it must offer its prospects and clients “extraordinary value.”

That requires a business to “innovate,” to create a more unique client experience… one that’s based on the wants and needs of the client themselves and NOT on what the business owner wants and needs.

The problem is this. No one seems capable of thinking “outside the box” anymore. Small business owners keep saying that there is nothing they can do to innovate their business. If there were, they would have done so long ago. They’re missing the point.

Innovation doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel. It means knowing and understanding your ideal client’s wants and needs, and what they experience in the way of problems, concerns, fears and frustrations as they seek out the solution to those wants and needs.

I recently had a great conversation with one of our OneCoach clients. His name is Bill Church… aka Bow Wow Bill. Bill started out less than 2 years ago as a $10 an hour dog walker. Yes… a dog walker. He loves dogs, and he wanted to build a business around his passion for them. Under our guidance, he began to offer obedience training in his local community. He quickly grew that business to 6 figures.

Now… ask yourself this. What in the world could a dog trainer possibly do to “innovate” their business? I mean, if a dog trainer could do something to create “extraordinary value” don’t you think you could do so in your business as well?

Let me fill you in on the “innovations” Bow-Wow Bill has recently created…

• In the process of creating an internationally distributed Dog Training Magazine
• Currently has 45,000 global subscribers to-date that have already signed up for the magazine through partnerships and joint ventures (and the magazine hasn’t even launched yet)
• He is offering the magazine in a multitude of different formats… print, online, audio, video, iPhone application, and 2 others he has yet to determine.
• He has created partnerships with the International Association of Canine Professionals, American Dog Owners Association and Dogs for the Deaf
• He has been endorsed and has formed a partnership with THE top Dog Trainer in the industry… a gentleman who has worked directly with Queen Elizabeth (can’t reveal his name yet)
• He’s preparing to write a book about his road to success (which we’re proud to say will heavily endorse OneCoach)

Seriously… this guy was struggling to pay his bills and was waiting tables for a living about 22 months ago. How many thousands or millions of lives do you think he will dramatically influence for the rest of his life… all as a result of his tremendous hard work and passion?

So c’mon small business owners, if a $10 an hour dog walker from Seattle can do all of this in a matter of months, what’s your excuse. Start thinking about your ideal clients. What do they want? What do you do to give that to them? And then ask yourself this… what COULD I do to give it to them better, faster, with less hassle, with more convenience, at a lower price, at a higher price but with much more value, with less work, with less frustration, with fewer steps… whatever.

All of you want more sales… right? There’s NO magic to selling. Find out what your ideal client WANTS… and then give it to them in a way that makes them come to only one conclusion… “I would be an absolute fool if I bought this from anyone else but you!

Do this… and you create an extraordinary life for both yourself and your clients.