"Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them; a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the late minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the SKILL and the WILL. But the WILL must be stronger than the skill."

Muhammad Ali

At the end of the day our success and our team's success come down to our desire, our dream, our vision, and most importantly our cultural WILL to make it happen. It comes down to each of us being ON our GAME!

"I was in a rush recently" … does that sound familiar? Our pool had turned a dark green and I desperately needed to shock the water back to some semblance of clear. So with a hundred other things to do in my day, I ran into aisle 34 of my favorite big box store where I had picked up pool items in the past. There, almost at the very end, was the pool shock that I needed. I lifted the largest container and at that moment remembered that we needed one other pool item. Scrambling not to take extra time searching unsuccessfully for the item, I finally resorted (it’s a guy thing not to ask first) to finding someone who could help me. I hauled my heavy container of pool shock up the aisle and found a woman wearing the special big box store shirt and addressed her politely, “Excuse me Ma’am, I am in a real rush and wondered if you could help me find this particular pool item.” Without even looking up she snapped out, “Everything pool is in aisle 34.” Without even lifting her head!

A funny thing happened in that moment as I stood stunned by her uncaring attitude and total ambivalence: I decided that even though this had always been my favorite big box store, I would exercise my purchasing options! In that moment I decided never to use that particular store again. In that moment the “everything pool is in aisle 34” lady didn’t lose a mere $50 sale, she lost a $25,000 lifetime customer.

This woman was a mature worker. She knew the ropes and the consequences. She was off her game. I have been around teams all of my life and I have observed that excellence and ambivalence very seldom happen on their own. We need the proper team environment and continuous coaching to play our BEST GAME!

If you are a business owner these three goals are on your mind every week:

1- Keeping your best people!
2- Keeping your best people engaged (performing at a high level)!
3- Keeping your best customers!

So before we talk about the cost to deliver this value let me ask three key bottom line questions:

1- What is the average, all-in, hard cost of losing an average employee?
2- What is the average engaged---------disengaged employee productivity differential?
3- What is the lifetime, average, residual value of your client/customer?

What if Inspiring your BEST GAME encourages one of your people to impact one of your customers in a positive way (unlike the “everything pool is in aisle 34” lady)?

It has been my experience that to stay on our GAME we need small continuous bursts of encouragement… and that is what Inspiring your BEST GAME delivers.