By Mark Kleinschmidt, President/CEO
Major League Baseball is big business, generating $12.5 billion in revenue and attracting over 70 million fans to stadiums in 30 cities in the US and even in Japan, Mexico and England. While it’s a sport, baseball offers valuable insights for small business owners. Numerous books have been written using baseball strategies as a framework for business strategies, so here are five of my favorite business lessons you can glean from baseball, along with some sage advice from renowned players.
Lesson #1: Think long term, it’s a long season.
It is a long season, but you must take it “one game at a time”. A pitcher can give up 10 runs one day and throw a no-hitter in his next outing. Each day is a fresh start, a new opportunity to put another check mark in the WIN column.
In both baseball and business, plans must be flexible. If something isn’t working, you don’t stick with it just because it’s written in your business plan or on your lineup card. Players get hurt or have slumps or sometimes just don’t perform how you expected. Sales stagnate or market conditions change. Adjusting your plan to the current reality is the only way to stay on top, whether you’re trying to win baseball games or run a business.
Richie Ashburn, the Phillies Hall of Fame outfielder said it best, “It’s a long season and you gotta play em one game at a time”.
Lesson #2: Build your team.
To have a winning team, the GM and the manager have to assemble a group of players with different skills to play different positions and be able to work together and win enough games to put them into the World Series. Not too different in business, as the business owner must seek out the right employees to complete the various functions and tasks of the business to have it successfully operate and generate a profit. I am thinking that Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, would have been a great baseball GM.
Managers don’t have to just figure out who’s on the team. They have to come up with batting orders and pitching rotations, bench players and scheduling matchups. It requires a lot of planning to assess your team and determine the best way to use it. Having a harmonies group of players or employees does not just happen, it takes a lot of work and it’s the business owners challenge to create a “winning environment” or company culture that will grow your bottom line.
Check out what Babe Ruth said about the importance of a team approach: “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”
Lesson #3: It’s all about the fans.
Think of your customers as fans. In baseball, the fans attending the home games are the customers. Every MLB team plays 162 games in the season, which means 81 home games worth of seats to fill. Baseball team owners are like the owners of any other business — they have to give their customers value. But since they’re not in control of the outcome of the game, value means creating an experience.
How is this like your business? You can’t just think about your product or service. You need to think about how it is delivered. You need to follow up with your customers. The experience your customer has with your company can make or break their overall view of you and your products. Filling the seats isn’t enough. You want those seats filled by people who are happy and will want to come back.
Tommy LaSorda, the legendary and outspoken manager of the LA Dodgers said, “No matter how good a team you have, unless you have support and good customer relations, you run into problems. And nobody deserves our gratitude and respect more than our fans.”
Lesson #4: The power of the pitch.
The legendary baseball manager known as the “Ol Perfessor”, Casey Stengel once said, “Good pitching will stop good hitting everyday”. The pitcher can overpower the bater with a 100 mile per hour fastball of get him to swing and miss at a soft curveball. It is the same in business, you must have a well-developed pitch or unique selling proposition to explain why a customer should buy from you. So as a small business owner, it is important to have a great pitch for your business. You should be able to describe their business quickly, succinctly, and most of all, passion and excitement.
Lesson #5: You gotta believe.
You never know what may happen during the season of during a game. Your star player could get injured, suspended for steroids or gambling and is out for the season. You could be losing a game and your backup catcher comes up to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning and hits a three run walk off homer. You just never know and that’s why in the immortal words of Tug McGraw, “You Gotta Believe”
In business, you need a “glass is half full” mindset to show up every day because you know you know you have a chance. As the business owner you must make a lot of decisions, but you must have confidence in your team and the team must have confidence in you.
I hope you enjoy the 162-game journey of your favorite team trying to make it to the World Series. During the season use the five lessons and hopefully your business will be playing for the championship. So, get out there and—PLAY BALL