High-Performance Team Lessons from "Days of Thunder"

Welcome, friends, to a special issue of the Ricky Wiki, wherein I attempt to fuse passion for motorsport, sustainability, and electrification to spark conversations. While we're at it, let's add another passion of mine into the mix: Marketing.

1. First up, strap yourself in for a fun conversation about the B2B Marketing Lessons from the 1990 Tom Cruise motorsport film Days of Thunder as I join the awesome team at the Remarkable Marketing Podcast.
2. Then we'll review the performance lessons from the episode.
3. Finally, strap yourself in for my latest autocross shenanigans.

Listen: B2B Marketing Lessons From "Days of Thunder" with the Remarkable Marketing Podcast

Listen: Apple Pocasts | Spotify

Now let's take a high-level review of the performance lessons from the episode.

"Rubbing is Racing"

Lesson 1: Planning and Contingencies

In the film, there’s this beautifully shot, iconic scene where Robert Duvall’s character is building the racecar, talking to it like it’s a character in the movie. He goes through all the ways he’s going to shape it and set it up - effectively calling it “perfect.”

And in the very next scene, it’s being hit and sideswiped during the first race. The next series of scenes is basically the car being defaced and wrecked repeatedly while racing and the team struggling to get their act together.

It reminds me of the planning process and the need to stay agile. As marketers and creatives, we like to sit in our studios and develop these beautiful plans. But how often do they start to fall apart once we start to execute?

That’s not to say that those efforts were wasted. You just have to know that some things are not going to go according to plan and you’ll have to adapt. Thinking through contingencies and baking in some flexibility during planning helps the team continue forward with speed. That’s true of marketing AND racing.

The Foundation for Trust

Lesson 2: Communication

In a later scene, Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall’s characters aren’t getting on well together. There’s a fun sequence where they’re becoming increasingly antagonistic towards each other and the team’s performance is suffering as a result, to the point where the team owner has to sit them both down and say, basically, “You’re an amazing driver. And you’re the best crew chief. But if you can’t figure it out, we’re finished.”

The two later talk it through and it’s revealed that they don’t trust each other due to misunderstanding. Basically, they’re not talking the same language.

So whether it’s sales vs. marketing or creatives vs. operations, the lesson to marketers, or just teams in general, is that a shared language is critical. It's foundational for trust.

I picked up a practical application of this from Fictiv’s CRO, Joanne Morretti, when I first started working for her at a previous company. She pointed out that a lot of the metrics that marketing likes to promote, things like "impressions" and "likes" don’t resonate with salespeople. They’re interested in "leads" and "opportunities." What she said has stuck with me over the years:

“Make your stakeholders' metrics your metrics.”

There is no 110%

Lesson 3: Avoiding Burnout

I love wordplay, so one of my favorite lessons from the movie is about tires and burnout.

In racecar driving, there’s what’s called “the limit,” which refers to the limit of grip of the tires. So, tires do 3 important things: Accelerate, brake, or turn, and they can only do one of these things at 100%. That’s their limit.

Racecar drivers are constantly trying to get to and stay at the limit. And Tom Cruise’s character, trying to drive as fast as possible, is exceeding those limits, which is causing them to burn out and break down prematurely.

This is a problem because when the tires wear down prematurely, the driver has to go to the pits to change to a new set of tires, which costs time.

The takeaway for marketers and managers is that we have our own limits of performance, too.

The best we can perform is at the peak of our ability.

And yes, it’s not an imminent disaster to push beyond our limits here and there. But if you’re doing it regularly, and for sustained periods of time, you’re going to wear out prematurely and burn out. And in the longer run, that’s the slower way to make progress.

So there you have it: Three important marketing lessons from Days of Thunder. Performance management inspired by the world of motorsport is something we'll explore in an upcoming issue.

My Latest Autocross Shenanigans

This past weekend was the 2024 Florida Autocross State Championship. I didn't take home a trophy, but after a crazy month of hurricane after hurricane impacting the racing season, it was great to get out and drive fast with the best in the state!

That's a wrap for this issue. Enjoy your rides!