For sports fans, and especially reporters, spring is a busy time of the year. Baseball season is starting, March Madness, NFL free agency and draft, and the winter leagues heading to the playoffs.
Football fans feel angst when because of (primarily) salary cap issues teams let fan favorites go; Richard Sherman in Seattle, Jordy Nelson in Green Bay, and many others (both of those mentioned probably in their respective team’s Hall of Fame). It’s tough on all, including management.
And we need to have the same attitude in our business. Just because someone’s been with us for a long time doesn’t make them untouchable. Salespeople know this by the size of their commission. Others, not so easily aware.
Football legend Vince Lombardi had three keys to staying on top. Two were psychological and the other was pragmatic:
“There is a tendency to stay with the players that won the championship – even if he isn’t as good as he was. And it’s the very human thing to do. However, there is no room for that type of emotion. Football is a hardheaded cold business. No matter what a player did last year, he must go if he can’t do it this year.”
Not just employees. Cutting customers or vendors is just as important. Bad customers can make your life miserable, and just aren’t worth it. Vendors not keeping current on products, always late on shipments, etc. will have your team screaming.
It’s tough because it affects others’ lives. In our case, it’s not athletes making $5-15 million a year. But it has to be done so it doesn’t detrimentally affect your or my life.
