Monday, July 30, 2007

Fortune 500 or Dollar General

Today I was having lunch with a very good friend of mine. He’s an absolute genius at sales/marketing and he’s currently the Vice President of Sales/Marketing for Politic2.0. We were comparing the speed of change and innovation in business vs. that of the strength and conditioning world. It was an intriguing conversation and here are a few of the key points.

· Without innovation in business you will soon find yourself obsolete and out of a job…thus if you want to eat you must be on the cutting edge. S&C Coaches get waaaay to comfortable and see there job as a way to collect a check instead of a way to be on the cutting edge. We don’t put ourselves out there enough…we are often waiting on other coaches to do it before we will. This conservative nature might be your ticket out of the game.

· Great ideas only become successful if the timing and market is right.

· Innovation in S&C is built around developing four basic qualities: Strength, Power, Speed, Work Capacity/Hypertrophy. As coaches we often see these parameters as road blocks, instead of launching pads. We already have the fundamental concept in place we just have to expand it.

· In business if you can’t communicate you are dead in the water…how many S8C coaches have you met that wouldn’t make it at a social affair b/c they are too busy shaving their head or watching NASCAR. We need to be well-rounded people…read books, watch CNN and know what is going on the global community. If we can’t connect with the rapidly changing culture that we live in, it won’t matter if you are the Einstein of the S&C world.

It’s just a thought…but we might be better off running our S&C programs like a Fortune 500 company instead of the local dollar store…a lot of nice trinkets but not one solid product.

1 comment:

Andy Ellwood said...

When you have that kind of focus, there is no telling what opportunities will present themselves. Great post E.
Don't be the best option, be the only option.
~A