“Complacency is the last hurdle any winner, any team, must overcome before attaining potential greatness. Complacency is the success disease: It takes root when you’re feeling good about who you are and what you’ve achieved.”
These are the words of Pat Riley, five-time NBA championship coach, in his book The Winner Within.
Call it human nature. Or the product of many years in the business. Or age. Or being comfortable with the status quo. Or, heaven forbid, the dreaded we’ve always done it that way.
Whatever we label it, we’re all guilty of become complacent on some level, particularly when it comes to things repeatedly done year after year in business — for example, exhibiting at a boat show. We say we intend to look for improvements and new ideas, but we have a built-in tendency to resist change and accept that whatever worked in the past should be just as good now.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be what you’ve always been.”
Growing up, my grandfather said this to me many times. They are solid words when reflecting on our businesses. After all, we all want to do better regardless of the level of success already achieved.
More often than not, however, we’re all good to talk the talk but not so good to walk the walk, and not much actually seems to change.
“Yes, but we’ve really done things well and been successful,” you say.
That’s excellent. It’s a solid foundation on which to build even more success. It means radical changes are necessary. In fact, there are few winners who would say they ever threw out a successful formula to gamble on some radically new idea.
Most winners reveal that they reached a new level of success when they took something that was “working” and tuned it, polished it and added a new ingredient that energized everything to a higher level. Conversely, if there hasn’t been much previous success, it may be time for something radical.
Regardless of past results, there is no better time than when the economy is sluggish and sales are expected to be off for every dealer to seriously look for ways to inject new energy.
We’re in the middle of the industry’s critical winter show season. And we know there is no other marketing medium that can place the largest concentration of prospects and buyers face-to-face with dealers and sales teams. Virtually all of the early shows have reported good crowds, and we’re only midway through the schedule, with many shows still to go.
For dealers with a show ahead, question the value of doing the same old thing and initiate new ideas that can make exhibiting more successful. Boat shows clearly influence buyers. Make exhibit improvements, add visual appeal and inject enthusiasm in the dealership team.
See my Dealer Outlook post from last Thursday for more on putting together a successful boat-show exhibit.
And remember:
You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can trim the sails for better performance.
