What 'A Christmas Story' Can Teach Us About Business

Article Provided Courtesy of Glen Raiger, CEO, Sovren Group, Inc.

What 'A Christmas Story' Can Teach Us About Business

By Natalie Burg

"You'll shoot your eye out!"

Just when you thought that much-loved line couldn't mean any more or less than it did the last 500 times you heard it, the popular movie A Christmas Story includes some business lessons you may have overlooked.

Business lessons in a holiday movie? You bet your Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle. In this post we revisit good ol' Cleveland Street to uncover five business lessons that can be learned from the cinematic classic.

1. Set clear goals

Ralphie knew exactly what he wanted — that darn BB gun — and he let everyone know it. His parents, Miss Shields, Santa Claus and anyone else who might listen.

"Business owners should not fear setting goals or projections because there is absolutely no downside to doing so," writes Michael A. Olguin for Inc.

After launching his business, Formula, with only a goal of making enough money to survive, Olguin explains that later learning to set his sights on specific benchmarks brought unexpected benefits, including being able to measure his success, creating cohesion among leadership and empowered decision making.

And, as Ralphie proved, there's at least one major upside of setting goals: the joy of achieving them.

2. Don't bow to pressure

Competitors, colleagues and economic pressures find ways of triple-dog daring businesspeople into making poor decisions. Lowering standards to compete or ride out an economic rough patch, for example, can sometimes seem like the only option. But it rarely is the right one.

"While your short-term performance may improve from lowering your standards," says Proximo president Mike Periu, for American Express Open Forum, "the long-term damage to your business could be fatal."

Periu shares the example of a Stamford, Conn. restauranteur who decided, during economic hard times, to lower the quality of ingredients that went into his menu. He may have saved some money, but once he started going down the path of cutting corners, the restaurant never recovered.

Whether it's economic pressure or peer pressure, the results of giving in are often similar — the business equivalent of the fire department being called in to remove your tongue from a frozen pole. Just ask Ralphie's buddy Flick.

3. There is such thing as cheesy marketing that works ...

Few marketing tactics can come off as cheesier than bad product placement. And A Christmas Story itself, for all its delightful qualities, is an unashamedly cheesy movie. Yet, somehow, the prominent placement of the Red Ryder BB gun in the film comes off as charming.

Was it effective? Well, you can still buy a Red Ryder BB gun today, and while it's hard to say that A Christmas Story is the only reason why, the company that makes it sure doesn't fail to reference the movie in the product description.

4. ... and cheesy marketing that doesn't

The Little Orphan Annie decoder ring in the film illustrates where marketing can go astray. Ralphie was so disappointed when his hard-won decoder ring (earned from drinking all that Ovaltine) revealed the message: "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

After promising kids exclusive membership to a secret society, the fictional marketing scheme was a sore disappointment. Don't build up customer expectations with big promises and then disappoint with a "crummy commercial."

5. Never give up

Ralphie didn't just know what he wanted; he pursued it relentlessly until the end, even when it seemed clear that Christmas was over and he wouldn't receive his BB gun. (Or so he thought.) That persistence is exactly why he had the opportunity to shoot himself in the eye later that day.

Just as Ralphie did in pursuit of his gun, business owners often face opposition everywhere they look. But, as Joe Robinson writes for Entrepreneur, "Entrepreneurs who can avoid saying uncle have a better chance of finding their market and outlasting their inevitable mistakes."

Robinson illustrates this with the story of Jett McCandless, who lost everything after his freight logistics business went belly up. Though he was offered multiple, well-paying logistics positions while scrambling to make ends meet, he saw these as an easy out, compromising his dream. Instead, he started over, placing all his chips in a new business -- one that grew to $35 million in revenue two years later.

Who knew Ralphie's holiday adventure had so much to teach business owners? By following his lead, your "yearly bacchanalia of peace on earth and good will toward men" will be even more joyous than usual this year--and beneficial to your bottom line, as well.

A former downtown development professional, Natalie Burg is a freelancer who writes about growth, entrepreneurialism and innovation.