Winning in Life

In last week’s post I challenged you to think about how and at what point do you know you are winning in your business. There are many different ways to identify your score. You really can know if you are winning or losing. The goal is to have a scoreboard that is up to date and easy to read. This is very important. The sooner you know the score the sooner you can make wise decisions. Let’s look at why this is important.

If you know the score you’ll see one of 3 things. You will be ahead of schedule, on schedule or behind schedule. It’s easy to keep score in business, but how do you keep score in LIFE? This is harder to do. Not impossible but harder, so let’s look at like this. If I had to guess, I would guess your business impacts your personal life in a big way. How much does your business affect your marriage, your family time, your life style, or your health? Do you just keeping working and working and working because you love it. Most of us love this industry, but is that winning in Life? I’m not judging if you think it is, but most people believe there is a lot more to life than work.

If you knew you were winning what would you do?

• Work harder and longer for more profits (not a bad thing if you have nothing saved for a rainy day)
• Go out to eat with your spouse
• Take off early to watch one of your kid’s events
• Take a vacation

 If you knew you were losing, what would you do?

• Try to work through it (for how long?) 
• Restructure 
• Evaluate if you have a Marketing, Sales, Production or Financial issue 
• Hire a consultant
• Take some time off to clear your mind (this is crucial for wise decision making) 

How we spend our time and money usually identifies what’s important to us.

When do you know you are winning?

We can learn a lot from NCAA’s March Madness. Whether you love basketball or old fashion competition, most people can appreciate March Madness. Let’s look at the similarities to business. NCAA tournament starts with 68 teams. A lot of teams/competition. Some teams are power houses with a chip on their shoulders. Some are underdogs and are hungry for any win they can get. Watch out for these guys.

What's your score?  Are you winning or losing?

Some teams have a history or reputation that gives them an advantage in ranking, but they still have to win the games. Isn’t this true with some companies? Each game starts 0-0 with 40 minutes to play. Everyone knows the rules. Everyone knows the score each second of the game. This includes the players as well the spectators.


Knowing the score brings a special intensity for everyone.
     Intensity brings Motivation.
     Motivation brings Achievement.
     Achievement brings Wins.
     Wins brings happy people.

Let me ask you a few questions:
     Do you know if you are winning or losing?
     How frequent is your scoreboard updated?
     Does your team know if you are winning or losing?
     Would your decisions change according to the score?
     Do you celebrate the Win?


We all start with a budget that has us winning in the end, but at what point do you know you are winning?

Contact me if you need help designing a scoreboard for your company.

Brad@rivervalleylandscapes.com