Why Champions Beat Winners...in Everything

Original Post: July 10, 2016

Vince Lombardi was famous for starting each Green Bay Packer training camp off by re-focusing his players on the fundamentals of football.  It didn't matter if his locker room was filled with returning world champions, all-pros, rookies, or guys just trying to walk on, Coach Lombardi started off the same: holding a pigskin in his hand, he'd announce "Gentlemen, this is a football." From there, they'd move on to blocking and tackling and eventually get into the notoriously basic playbook...but the success of everything--each player, every play, any game, the entire season--relied on mastering the fundamentals.

And his record speaks for itself.

Could teams win games without this fanatical focus on the fundamentals?  Sure.  But not many teams could beat the Green Bay Packers without perfecting them.  Ultimately, the difference between "Champions" and "Winners" is that Champions beat Winners...consistently and impressively over time.  

The same holds true in business.  If you offer a product or service that has enough market demand and not enough natural competition, you can make a lot of mistakes and still "win." If, however, you have a competitive gradient to overcome, perfecting the fundamentals of your game is not optional--it's essential.  In managed services (whether it be managed print, managed IT, managed health, managed energy...you name it, the list goes on), the most basic fundamental--the "this is a football" fundamental--is the client assessment process. Without a consistent, repeatable, and mastered process to find out what is critical to your client and their clients, you may win a few deals, but you'll never be a true champion to your clients or in your industry.

The good news: we're here to help.  At Atlas, we've developed a tool to help guide your assessment process so it's consistent, powerful, and easy to master regardless of the size of your team and across all your clients. Think of us as the "Spirit of Lombardi"...we'll help you drive home the fundamentals so your team gets--and stays--in championship form.  

Drop us a note.  We look forward to hearing from you.