Bridging the Victory Gap The 6 Steps to Success Part 1
Bridging the Victory Gap The 6 Steps to Success Part 1
By Warren Coughlin, Business Coach
“Be great in act as you have been in thought” Shakespeare.
Do you want to make more money in your business? Do you want to have more time to enjoy the money you do generate? This is the first in a series of articles designed to help you do just that.
Many business owners begin their own businesses for one or a combination of 4 reasons:
a) They have expertise in a particular area for which they feel a demand exists;
b) They have a passion for a particular activity that they feel compelled to pursue;
c) They have a passion for freedom and independence and discovered an opportunity to follow that passion through their own business; or
d) They were driven to self-employment by circumstances.
However, regardless of how they came to be business owners, they frequently have not developed or acquired all the skills or knowledge necessary to fully capitalize on the businesses they have created. As a result, their dreams remain unfulfilled as they never bridge “The Victory Gap.”
What is “The Victory Gap”
This concept can best be understood by reference to athletics. Anyone who has watched any elite level competitive racing, such as Olympic swimming, sprinting, or cycling, knows that there are generally 3 or 4 top athletes who are always at the front of the pack. They may exchange places from race to race, but they are always at the top. Then there is the rest of the pack, none of whom seem able to break into the ranks of the top racers. The distance between the leaders and the pack is the Victory Gap. It is usually not a very large gap, often measured only in tenths or hundredths of a second. Yet the difference in rewards enjoyed by the members of the two groups is dramatic.
The lesson? In business, you don’t have to be vastly superior to your competition to win the lion’s share of the market. You must simply be marginally better than the competition on a consistent basis. That consistency is achieved by focusing on Critical Victory Factors (CVF’s); those skills and attributes that are essential for success. Great athletes continuously practice and train to enhance the CVF’s relevant to their sport. For instance, a marathon runner doesn’t work on upper body strength while a sprinter does. Business is no different. Consistent superior performance in business can be realized by focusing on the entrepreneur’s CVF’s.
The Entrepreneur’s CVF’s
There are 8 CVF’s for business owners. The more proficient you become in each of these areas, the greater the success you will achieve. The CVF’s are:
Subject matter expertise (e.g. if you are a lawyer, you know the law; if you are a carpenter, you know which end of a hammer to hold);
Success mindset (i.e. you believe in your ability to win)
Financial management
Marketing
Sales
Team building
Systems development
Time management.
Your altitude is limited by your aptitude. That means that the height to which your business can soar is limited by the weakest of your CVF’s. If you are a wonderful sales person, but have poor time management skills, you will always be challenged to sell to enough customers. If you are a wonderful
salesperson with excellent time management habits, but lacklustre team building skills, you will always find it difficult to grow your business.
The sad reality is that very few entrepreneurs diligently pursue opportunities to develop these skills. This happens for a couple of reasons. First, rather than view learning opportunities as investments, they may consider them as costs to be minimized, thereby sentencing themselves to limited growth. Second, they may feel there is so much to learn, they don’t know where to start. And so they don’t.
Where to Begin: the 6 Steps to Massive Results
In this series of articles, we will explore these skills. But before we do, it is important to know how to begin. Every business goes through a 6 step evolution. How far up the evolutionary ladder it ascends is a function of the owner’s willingness to continually develop the organization’s skills. Please note that the owner does not have to possess all the skills herself, as long as those skills exist in the right places within the company. The owner must be sufficiently familiar with all of them to ensure they are being adequately developed and deployed, but she need not be an expert in all areas.
However, if the business is to move up the evolutionary ladder quickly and effectively, it is critical that the owner know enough to ensure that the CVF’s are pursued in the right order. If not, the business could falter. For instance, if an owner is working diligently on enhancing team-building skills without understanding the business’ cash flows, she could end up with a happy team soon to be out of work. So, if you have not mastered all of the CVF’s listed above and don’t know where your business sits on the evolutionary ladder, be sure to read the next article in this series where we introduce each of the 6 steps.
Bridging the Victory Gap The 6 Steps to Success Part 1 - To learn more about this author, visit Warren Coughlin's Website.
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Bridging the Victory Gap: 6 Steps to Massive Results
By Warren Coughlin, Business Coach
“Be great in act as you have been in thought” Shakespeare.
Do you want to make more money in your business? Do you want to have more time to enjoy the money you do generate? This is the first in a series of articles designed to help you do just that.
Many business owners begin their own businesses for one or a combination of 4 reasons:
a) They have expertise in a particular area for which they feel a demand exists;
b) They have a passion for a particular activity that they feel compelled to pursue;
c) They have a passion for freedom and independence and discovered an opportunity to follow that passion through their own business; or
d) They were driven to self-employment by circumstances.
However, regardless of how they came to be business owners, they frequently have not developed or acquired all the skills or knowledge necessary to fully capitalize on the businesses they have created. As a result, their dreams remain unfulfilled as they never bridge “The Victory Gap.”
What is “The Victory Gap”
This concept can best be understood by reference to athletics. Anyone who has watched any elite level competitive racing, such as Olympic swimming, sprinting, or cycling, knows that there are generally 3 or 4 top athletes who are always at the front of the pack. They may exchange places from race to race, but they are always at the top. Then there is the rest of the pack, none of whom seem able to break into the ranks of the top racers. The distance between the leaders and the pack is the Victory Gap. It is usually not a very large gap, often measured only in tenths or hundredths of a second. Yet the difference in rewards enjoyed by the members of the two groups is dramatic.
The lesson? In business, you don’t have to be vastly superior to your competition to win the lion’s share of the market. You must simply be marginally better than the competition on a consistent basis. That consistency is achieved by focusing on Critical Victory Factors (CVF’s); those skills and attributes that are essential for success. Great athletes continuously practice and train to enhance the CVF’s relevant to their sport. For instance, a marathon runner doesn’t work on upper body strength while a sprinter does. Business is no different. Consistent superior performance in business can be realized by focusing on the entrepreneur’s CVF’s.
The Entrepreneur’s CVF’s
There are 8 CVF’s for business owners. The more proficient you become in each of these areas, the greater the success you will achieve. The CVF’s are:
Subject matter expertise (e.g. if you are a lawyer, you know the law; if you are a carpenter, you know which end of a hammer to hold);
Success mindset (i.e. you believe in your ability to win)
Financial management
Marketing
Sales
Team building
Systems development
Time management.
Your altitude is limited by your aptitude. That means that the height to which your business can soar is limited by the weakest of your CVF’s. If you are a wonderful sales person, but have poor time management skills, you will always be challenged to sell to enough customers. If you are a wonderful
salesperson with excellent time management habits, but lacklustre team building skills, you will always find it difficult to grow your business.
The sad reality is that very few entrepreneurs diligently pursue opportunities to develop these skills. This happens for a couple of reasons. First, rather than view learning opportunities as investments, they may consider them as costs to be minimized, thereby sentencing themselves to limited growth. Second, they may feel there is so much to learn, they don’t know where to start. And so they don’t.
Where to Begin: the 6 Steps to Massive Results
In this series of articles, we will explore these skills. But before we do, it is important to know how to begin. Every business goes through a 6 step evolution. How far up the evolutionary ladder it ascends is a function of the owner’s willingness to continually develop the organization’s skills. Please note that the owner does not have to possess all the skills herself, as long as those skills exist in the right places within the company. The owner must be sufficiently familiar with all of them to ensure they are being adequately developed and deployed, but she need not be an expert in all areas.
However, if the business is to move up the evolutionary ladder quickly and effectively, it is critical that the owner know enough to ensure that the CVF’s are pursued in the right order. If not, the business could falter. For instance, if an owner is working diligently on enhancing team-building skills without understanding the business’ cash flows, she could end up with a happy team soon to be out of work. So, if you have not mastered all of the CVF’s listed above and don’t know where your business sits on the evolutionary ladder, be sure to read the next article in this series where we introduce each of the 6 steps.
Bridging the Victory Gap The 6 Steps to Success Part 1 - To learn more about this author, visit Warren Coughlin's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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