In the late 1970s, the San Francisco 49ers were the worst franchise in football. At 2-14, they looked hopeless.
Not just hopeless as a team. Hopeless as an organization.
For the 1979 season, Bill Walsh joined the team as their head coach. He proceeded to take the team to a 2-14 record his first year.
In his second year, they went 6-10. During this 6-10 season, they had a crippling 8 game losing streak.
After two years under Bill Walsh, it didn’t look like things were getting any better. At least if we looked at their record.
Underneath the surface, momentum was building. Unbeknownst to them at the time and their record didn’t support this.
The momentum began when Bill Walsh implemented what he calls his “Standard of Performance”. He did this the day he started with the San Francisco 49ers.
Although this standard resulted in a first year 2-14 record. Then, a second year 6-10 record. The standard built enough momentum, that they had a third year 13-3 record with a Super Bowl win.
Over the course of the next decade, they won the Super Bowl three more times. Then, one more time in the 1990s. All with Bill Walsh and coaches that learned under Bill Walsh.
The Bill Walsh “Standard of Performance” is built on consistently executing fundamentals. It’s not so important what his specific fundamentals are, although there are some great ones. What is important is he had fundamentals and he was unwavering in his commitment to them.
Bill Walsh has attributed the San Francisco 49ers first Super Bowl win to their adherence to this “Standard of Performance”.
Fast forward to 2020 and here we are. 2 weeks in a row.
What we can learn from Bill Walsh and the San Francisco 49ers, is that this momentum is probably going to take a while. And, we need a “Standard of Performance” with some fundamentals to adhere too.
Although this standard comes from football, it is directly applicable to our business and careers.
If we would like to get traffic to our blog, we need to consistently produce quality content. This is our fundamental. If we consistently do this for nine to eighteen months, we will begin to see some results.
If we want to build our sales revenue, we need to consistently find prospective customers. Talk to those prospective customers and solve their needs.
If we consistently build this pipeline of prospective customers for six to twelve months, we will begin to see our sales build significant momentum.
Like Bill Walsh and the 49ers, we have to be willing to adhere to our own “Standard of Performance” for a significant length of time. Only then can we build enough momentum to get us to our goals.
It’s unlikely that meeting here – 2 weeks in a row – can be considered building momentum. But, it’s a step in the right direction.
Two weeks can become three weeks. And three weeks can become three years later with a Super Bowl win.
All starting one day at a time.