The difference between success and failure in business is often quite miniscule.
By Jim Callahan
here’s a fine line between success and failure. Sometimes the line is so thin, if it were a pair of pants, it would have only one belt loop.
Do you know what else is thin: the difference between profits and loss. It’s my firm belief that it takes just as much effort to lose money as it does to make it.
Let’s examine this premise with a payday anecdote. The team that wins the Super Bowl takes home double what the losing team makes. In the last Super Bowl, for the losing team—my team, the Atlanta Falcons—the payment for each player was $53,000—a year’s pay for some, but less than half of what the winning team members of the New England Patriots took home ($107,000).
A DIFFERENCE OF $54,000
My Falcons led the entire game, right until the waning last few seconds and conversely those pesky Patriots were losers until one critical play—a play I might add that earned each Patriot player and coach $54,000 more than each Falcon.
The losing Falcon team got just as sweaty and dirty and trained just as hard, and as the saying goes: “Left it all out on the field” just as the Patriots did that Sunday. Yet, one team was SUCCESSFUL and one team was a FAILURE. Surely the difference was, as MINISCULE as miniscule gets—less than 30 seconds in a 60-minute contest.
Bet your bottom dollar that the failing team will examine the things including players, coaches and front-office personnel that led to failure and address the changes they feel will make up the miniscule differences between going home with a sick feeling in their gut and joy of hoisting that Lombardi Trophy.
The fact that New England quarterback Tom Brady couldn’t keep track of his own jersey is beside the point.
Just like in the convenience store and truck stop business, employees get paid regardless of success or failure.
If you know anything about either business or football, you realize that a winning team can’t rest on its laurels and as the New England Patriots have proved year after year, will review, analyze and make the difficult decisions it feels necessary to remain a success and stay on top.
So, if it takes as much effort to lose money as it does to make money what is the difference? Each team must navigate those 100 yards in order to score. But, it’s in that final 20 yards where you will find the difference between being stifled by challenges or rising up and defeating them.
RUNNING FOR DAYLIGHT
In football those final 20 yards are referred to as the “red zone.” It’s widely accepted that that piece of terrain is the most fiercely defended on the whole field. Navigating the first 80 yards leading up to the “Red Zone” is admirable and it takes hard work, sweat and frustration.
Knowledge, determination and skill are also required to play the game, but it’s to no avail if you can’t traverse those final yards necessary to deliver those points on the scoreboard.
Are you delivering for your customers? Are you playing the game the way your business plan was drawn up?
Review your scheme and your team. Assess your Red Zone (Profit) proficiency, determine your weaknesses, whether they reside in management, in your employees, inventory control processes, marketing, curb appeal, foodservice, etc.
Once they’re identified, address them one by one because unlike football, a losing c-store team does not get to return for many seasons.
Money earned is a winning feeling. Lost sales spurred by poor service or bad merchandising is a lowly feeling.
This elusive success might be tied to the coaching staff that observed a very small crack in their opponent’s defense and waited for the right moment to capitalize. Maybe, it’s simply the team captain that gives the impassioned speech in the huddle to rally his teammates, driving them to increase their output.
It can be a key block or a deflective pass that pays off in the end, but often the difference between winning and losing is effort and the willingness to succeed. You can’t really see it, but it’s there.
Industry veteran Jim Callahan has more than 40 years of experience as a convenience store and petroleum marketer. His Convenience Store Solutions blog appears regularly on CSDecisions.com. He can be reached at (678) 485-4773 or via e-mail at [email protected].