The Kansas City Chiefs’ thrilling Super Bowl LIV win was simply amazing. Great throws, gutsy play calls, and more led to a comeback victory and the Most Valuable Player award for young quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
There are many lessons small business owners can learn from that Sunday’s game. The most important one is that most of Super Bowl LIV wasn’t won on the field or in the big plays. Victory was secured in 11 minutes of on-field play, 60 minutes of game time, four hours of TV time, 23 games throughout the pre-season, regular season, and post-season, and the six-month off-season. Likewise, business contracts aren’t won because of today’s sales pitch, but rather because of years developing trade mastery, knowledge of your target market, and putting together the right team.
Here are 11 other lessons to take home with you:
- Being successful starts with mastering your trade. You can’t win a Super Bowl without knowing how to run patterns, throw the ball, and sack the quarterback. You can’t run a great accounting or photography firm without being great at what you actually do.
- Set goals (win the Super Bowl), develop strategies (a passing-centric offense), and create processes (how do we keep the team cool, calm, and collected when behind in the biggest game of the year?). If this is an area of weakness, seek out a mentor or pay for training.
- Bring in the right people. Being a great quarterback doesn’t win Super Bowls without a good offensive line and solid receivers. (Just ask Tom Brady, who was notably absent from that Sunday’s game.)
- Keep your team focused, happy to be working with you, and ready to tackle any problem (literally and figuratively).
- Be able to dynamically make changes to your goals, strategies, and/or processes as information is received without going off course. The Chiefs certainly didn’t plan to be 10 points behind going into the fourth quarter.
- If your game plan is good, stick to it. You won’t win every game or every contract, but perseverance will bring results. The worst thing is to ditch a good game plan because you let fear overwhelm you.
- Trust your team. You picked your vendors, employees, mentors, and target markets for a reason. Unless there are compelling reasons to bench or trade someone, trust your team. Your trust will engender their trust – and two-way trust brings hard work, loyalty, and victory.
- Ignore the Monday morning quarterbacks. You’ll always have your critics. Tune almost all of them out.
- Pay attention to the clock. Some knowledgeable critics and Monday morning quarterbacks say 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan botched time management at the end of the first half. Your game clock might be a client’s deadline or the birth of a new child – so account for those in your tactics and your timelines.
- Be ready for when referees (elected officials, regulators, judges, etc.) make bad calls against you and be sure to ethically take advantage when the calls go your way. One way to do this is to hire a good lawyer early in your business. (I can’t think of a good football analogy to a lawyer…)
- Be professional and respectful in defeat and in victory.
