Greg's Right FIT #474

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts from Basketball
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts from Basketball

• You know the triangle offense? Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson’s offense with the Bulls and the Lakers? It’s famously complex. He’s the only one to make it work - to the tune of 11 championships. What did college hall of fame coach Mike Krzyzewski have to say about that? “It’s not the triangle offense! Jordan and Kobe and Shaq could make any offense work. It’s the players!” 
• Another legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, told us not to mistake activity for achievement. Especially true in sales where nothing counts until the check is cashed. Focus on the outcome.
• Famously grouchy NBA coach, Gregg Popovich talks about the dynamics of working together toward an outcome. “No one is bigger than the team. If you can’t do things our way, you’re not getting time here, and we don’t care who you are.”
• My playing days are long gone, but the benefits of watching game tape has stuck with me. Not reviewing it slows growth. Taking the time to "inspect what we expect" speeds up results. It's slow and laborious, but few tactics work better. 

Being Human - Tradeoffs

“. . .startups are like a gambling addiction." – Steve Blank

The Path Not Taken

I subscribe to Steve Blank's business stories, and this week he revisited a story that led to his first divorce - Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves. At the same time, a friend and I were debating the merits of building up our small-time speaking businesses. (my next talk is titled "Lead Generation is Not a Math Problem (So Stop Treating It Like One)" which I think is catchy) We likened building the business to being a new band, out on the road. I just finished Michael MacDonald's autobiography and being out on the road features strongly. (By the time he joined the Doobie Brothers they had been on the road so long and built up such a following they had two planes for gigs. One for the band and one for the stuff. A Doobieliner and a Crewbie Liner.) Going on the road and building a following is a tried and true method for building a fanbase. 

But, like a startup, it takes time and doesn't guarantee success. I remember a time early in my apparel startup where I saw a path to profitability. . .spend all my time on the road up and down the East Coast. 2/3 of the US population is there, lots of beaches, and Florida is a tropical shirt capital. My ideal customer profile was right there and life in a van up and down the coast would provide both branding and sales. Coupled with my online store, it  looked like a sure path to take. I even met a couple of small brand owners who did it, and they confirmed it would work. . .but for one little problem. I didn't want to do that. So I tried another way, what turned out to be an untested and much more expensive way. It never got to the next level. 

When you find a best practice, but it's not a fit, it won't work. It needs to be a fit for you or your team. If it's not a fit, you should have no regrets for the path not taken. It was the best choice at the time.

Steve Blank ends his story saying something about regretting the tradeoffs he made between personal relationships and startups on his way to making it big. The flip side, he seems to suggest, is having great relationships, but not striking it rich. Maybe. 

What is best? It's what's best for you. That's the thing. There is no one answer, it's not a binary choice, things change, and there are a lot of opinions out there. You have to come up with your own path and live with what the randomness life throws at you. And you have to do it without comparing your choice to the choices of others. Simple, but not easy. 

Random Stuff

“Don’t spit in the well you drink from." – an ancient saying

This week was a good week.

I've been sick for all of it. Some cough thing I picked up traveling. I knew I was cooked while sitting in the airport's crowded waiting area. It seemed like everyone walked around pale, dark-eyed, and sniffling. I was feeling run down after a few late nights, and that's a bad combo. I caught it.

The news this week has been grim. There are bright spots, like my alma mater's basketball teams winning, but the overall tone feels darker than normal. Good for ad sales, bad for the psyche. 

Then, to top it off, I learned yesterday that, once again, I didn't get nominated for a Grammy, Oscar, or a Tony. My personal award season drought continues. It's so very hard to get recognized out here in the plains.

So, what makes it a good week, Greg? 

Birds.

Specifically, the little bird video thing we put in the backyard. I'm learning all about the little visitors.

One that's caught my eye as particularly jumpy and nervous is the white-breasted nuthatch. They take a few bits while nervously glancing here and there, jump to the tree, and jump back between visits by the cardinals, sparrows, and woodpeckers. All the birds are nervous to a degree, but I watch the nuthatch and think, why are you so very, very jumpy? That's when I saw it. 

I get it. Gotta keep moving before you get caught.

Yep. That is all it took to make it a good week.