Imagine the football coach leading his team on the road to victory. Imagine this scene plays out in a movie. Music accentuates brave sound bites as men with black stripes under their eyes slam their hands against helmets and shout their agreement wit the coach. The music rises until the coach says, “Now, get out there and make me proud.”
The camera pans the expectant crowd that erupts as their team files from the tunnel. Men in face paint begin to roar and the crowd is on its feet as their team takes to the field with the sounds of doubt-filled announcers pronouncing doom.
There are tense moments as the challenging team always seems to be ahead and the home team tries valiantly to come from behind. This mental theater continues as players huddle and talk, then the coach places a hand on the shoulder of the quarterback and says something only he can hear.
The crowd is tense as the quarterback takes a few steps back and surveys the field. It seems an eternity passes and the defenders are losing their grip on players who want to pound the quarterback. At the very last second the ball is lofted toward the end zone and the quarterback is left breathless on the ground, the recipient of a brutal hit. What he can’t see from his position on the ground is that the ball was caught and his team wins the game by one point.
Battered and bruised the quarterback stands and is carried off the field by screaming teammates. Cameras snap pictures, the crowd goes wild and the other team slowly leaves the field having been denied the spoils of war.
This is a common theme in sports movies. Pick your sport and infuse the particulars in the above description. We’ve all been there rooting for the underdog and cheering for the team with the most heart.
Ecommerce is not easy. It relies on equal parts skill, hard work and some intangible things that are only understood with an entrepreneurial heart.
If you are a business owner you are the coach calling in the plays and working to defeat whatever it is that is in opposition to your winning the game. This could be working through your business plan, working through marketing issues, hiring new staff, developing new product lines and realizing that you are responsible for calling the plays – you can’t simply sit on the sidelines and hope things turn out all right.
Being the coach involves risk taking and play making, but that’s what you do. This is a role you signed up for when you took to the field of business ownership. The final play in any game comes back to you.
And the team that trusts you looks to you and says, “What’s it gonna be coach?”
An awesome responsibility? You bet, but that’s why this team calls you coach.
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