Do You Have A Winning Playbook for Your Business? Part 2
September 23rd, 2015 // 12:04 pm @ Scott Manning
Last week we talked about preparation, discipline, focus, and we created your regimen, your routine for success and winning.
Now, if the team is only as good as it’s players, the players are only as good as their plays. I’ll never forget one of my mentors saying, in not so few of words, that the biggest reason why very smart entrepreneurs do not achieve the level of success they seem to be worthy of and they live in a constant state of disappointment and frustration is because they might have a 7, 8, 9, 10 level of skill but are trapped in a 2, 3, 4, 5 level of opportunity.
In other words, for the sake of our sports talk, a great receiver doesn’t seem that great if they never have a chance to catch the ball. A great quarterback is only as good as the plays they have to win the games.
You can’t run the ball into a brick wall and you can’t pass the ball into double coverage. You get it. Enough for this week, I suppose.
Here’s the correlation, and it matters a lot and could be the exact reason why you are stuck in the level of success you have instead of continuing to breakthrough to whatever is next for you…
You must define your strengths and build a playbook around them.
You must have specifically structured “here’s how are business works” and here are the plays we use to acquire leads, the plays we use to create an amazing selling experience, plays we use to keep customers for life, plays we use to cultivate loyalty and indoctrination and plays we use to keep our employees and team members growing, thriving, winning and so on and so forth.
Most businesses do not have a playbook. Period.
And I’m not talking about some theoretical business plan on a bunch of paper that is meaningless other than to look pretty to an accountant or banker. I’m talking about in the trenches, every single day, customer by customer, month, quarter, year at a time, what is your strategy for winning and achieving the victory you have determined.
I happen to be the best in the world at developing business playbooks, what I call blueprints, so not only do I know what I’m talking about, I know that most do not have any specific way of doing anything that is predictable, sustainable, consistent, guaranteed.
If you are constantly recreating the wheel, making new decisions, taking detours, wooed by bright shiny objects, or at the mercy of the pundits then you might convert a few first downs but you will never score many touchdowns and you’ll always come up short on the W at the end of the day.
This is because you have to set forth your game plan in advance and build one that is designed and orchestrated for victory.
Right now in my company “someone” can tell you exactly how we are getting leads into the funnel, how many we expect, what’s working this month better than last month, what we intend to test and improve on next month – we are not leaving it up to the weather or chance or someone’s mood as to if we will have a good week or a bad week, we control it with our playbook.
As soon as a lead comes in, my Team knows what happens in the first few hours, the first 24 hours, the first 3-5-7 days, the first 2 weeks, the first 30 days and based on every decision and response and action and outcome what happens next.
And this has been crafted and created for each and every single area of the business and of the customer interaction.
The next part of the Playbook is ensuring every Member on the Team knows how they fit into it, they know their blocking assignment or running assignment or whatever assignment. They own their role.
As the leader it’s your responsibility to ensure every person is in the position best for them and that they are prepared to execute on every play.
The evolution of thinking here is very profound and extremely advanced, most businesses wake up everyday hoping for customers and then they have some arbitrary method of engagement they hope sways the patient, customer, client out of money in exchange for some meaningful, memorable, hopefully repeating and valuable experience.
You see the word “hope” a lot don’t you.
The switch here and what you can learn from my few weeks of sports analogies is going from hoping to having a plan. In this case a playbook for victory.
My company and every single one of my clients businesses we build them around what the quarterback does best…play to the strengths…and always have a plan to win. This leads me to next weeks topic all about You…The Quarterback and how to hit your sweet spot, be protected in the pocket, and play like a champion under pressure while you lead your team down the field to victory.
Homework this week, make sure you are working to your strengths, don’t try to be something you are not. Every team has an identity, it’s around that for which your playbook is crafted. Remember this, you will always have a greater chance for victory being calculated and strategic when embracing who you are and what you are best at and designing your plan around that rather than taking anything else into consideration.
And above all else don’t show up without a plan, prepared for the day, every customer, client, patient, and team member.
Category : Blog
