What do you think it could be?
With the Super Bowl upon us, we’re thinking about the bigg game – in football and in business. Today we want to compare the two.
The goal in both is the same: to win. But that’s where the similarity ends.
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Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk football & business on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen while you read [4:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk football & business on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen while you read [4:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download___
Let’s look at five differences between football and business:
The game In football, teams play one game at a time. In business, there are multiple games going on all the time.
The clock
In football, there is a clock to tell you when the game ends. In business, there is no clock because the games are ongoing.
However, a lot of business place artificial clocks in their operations – like monthly sales goals.
The competition
In football, teams face off against one competitor at a time. In business, we play against multiple competitors all the time.
In football, your competitor is always your competitor. In business, you may find ways to work with a competitor. For example:
- There may be markets you can reach together that neither of you can reach on your own.
- There may be operations or activities you can share more cost-effectively than doing it by yourself.
Measuring success
In football, results are ultimately measured by the scoreboard. In business, we ultimately measure our results with our financial statements.
Football teams measure their progress by points on the board compared to their competitors. Progress measurement in business is a bit more complex:
- It may be daily, weekly or monthly sales goals.
- It may be a daily comparison of sales to break-even.
- There may be activity-based goals.
- Every business has a dashboard (or should).
The audience
Now we’re ready to talk about the most important difference:
Football teams have fans. Businesses have customers.
Fans are not customers but customers can be fans.
Let’s clarify that last statement:
Fans of a team may also be customers of the business of the team. They may buy tickets to the games; they may buy apparel with the team logo on it and that sort of thing. But that’s a byproduct of their support of the team.
Fan loyalty is not entirely based on the performance of the team. (We root for the Bears so we know this all too well because we’re not fair-weather fans!)
Unlike fans of a football team, customers of a business respond directly to performance:
If performance is poor, they leave.
If performance is acceptable, they sit on their hands.
If performance is great, they jump to their feet and applaud!
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(Image in today's post by supercolor)
