Small Business and March Madness

There are several similarities between small businesses and basketball in the March Madness tournament. The learnings can be beneficial for small business owners looking to enhance presence and accelerate growth.

The Tournament favors the number one seeds and makes the odds steeper for the underdogs. 

• Small businesses are often seen as underdogs competing against Big business. 
• In both scenarios, the underdog can implement differentiated strategies to give them better presence, offense and defense to compete against those favored to win.

In basketball, leaders have to be willing to take risks. 

• Taking a riskier 3 point shot versus taking a 2 point shot can be the difference in a win. 
• In business, success requires risks for maximum reward. That risk may be financial investment, adopting new technology or new partnerships.

Rivalries in basketball are a strong motivator for a team to continue to improve skills and execution. 

• The same can be said in business. Competition provides additional drive to continue to innovate and elevate. Staying in the comfort zone can result in a loss of results or market share.

 Whether a top ranked athlete or a growing business, you can’t just be motivated by the competition. You must learn from the competition as well. 

• Learnings should be around what they do that enables success and what opportunities exist.

Collaboration is required within any team that makes it to tournament level. And it must exist both on and off the court for the team to consistently win as a whole. 

• A business cannot create an aligned message or experience if there is ineffective collaboration. Not only will it be hard to meet goals consistently, but the team will be in its own way with efforts to enter new markets, scale or exit.