The little things

Most people have heard that little things make a difference but they never really stop to think about them, as they relate to their business or even their personal life. Do they really make a difference and if so, how?

Using the sport of baseball, here is a simple example. So, do you think that just getting on extra hit every week makes a difference in baseball?

My numbers may be wrong, but here is some information to think about, to make a point. In general an average hitter in baseball will probably make in the range of $1mil to $5mil each year, so let’s settle at $3mil as the number. That’s lot of money, right? A superstar hitter will make between $5mil and $20mil each year, so let’s settle at $12.5mil. That’s 4X what the average hitter gets.

In major league baseball a batter is considered a superstar if he has a batting average of .300 or more every year. An average hitter will be around .250, a difference of .050. There are roughly 500 at bats (AB) for day to day players over 25 weeks in a season. One hit more per week equals 25 more hits.

Let’s do the math:

• 500 AB with 125 hits = .250 batting average
• 500 AB with 150 hits = .300 batting average

Let’s stretch it a bit to 1.4 extra hits per week:

• 500 AB with 160 hits = .320 batting average…wow that’s 70 points above the ‘average Joe’

The slight difference of one extra hit per week or more means a difference in earnings of 4X, or roughly $9.5mil more each year! On a typical four year contract that’s $38mil. The difference between being a superstar and an average player is really not that much when looked at on a weekly basis.

The same is true for you and your business. Now, how can you apply this to your business? Well, in baseball it’s getting the extra hit and for many players that means extra work in the batting cage and willingness to experiment and change technique. It’s also a commitment to better results and it’s a mental focus on getting results.

In your business, examine what the real drivers of revenue and profit are. Sometimes these are obvious, sometimes they are not what you think they are. In sales, it could be the mix of business, the activities and focus of your outside and inside sales team, the contacts made, the number of opportunities for quoting on business, the quality and effectiveness of your sales conversations, the close ratio, etc. In your planning set realistic stretch goals and be super diligent in measuring and monitoring performance. Be all over the activities that lead to results, knowing that incremental and steady growth in performance will lead to much better numbers.

Small things do add up over time. Your job as a salesperson or manager is to figure out just what those little things are and be very intentional on getting better at them to grow revenue and profits. If you’re in production or logistics, it’s not any different. There are numerous small things that you do everyday that can be improved upon and will add up to increased productivity and reduced operational costs.

Sweat the small things, the details, because they really do matter.

© 2009 Peter E. McDowell

PERFORMA Business Development

Different View/ Different Results

pete@performabusdev.com

Web @ http://www.performabusdev.com

Blog @ http://petemcd.wordpress.com/

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The little things

Sweat the small things, the details, because they really do matter.