From the CEO
Mike Panaggio is Chief Executive Officer of DME.
Since 1982, his creative vision has guided DME’s consistent growth and thriving profitability in the competitive one-to-one marketing field. His love of sports, especially basketball, have earned him the nickname “Head Coach of Marketing”.
Fundamental Brilliance
August 15, 2011
You can learn a great deal from sports and in particular basketball. What it takes to win. How to compete, practice and prepare and how important fundamentals are if you are going to have a chance at the big prize.
The first day of practice the legendary coach John Wooden of UCLA spent 30 minutes teaching his players the proper way to put on their socks. You can’t get more fundamental than socks. To Wooden a man who coached 24 All Americans and brought 10 NCAA Championship Trophies back to UCLA it was simply fundamentals. I see it as Fundamental Brilliance. He knew that basic simplicity and details when all lumped together would make a difference in March. They did year after year.
Wooden was a great developer of talent. He attracted the best talent in the USA. Once He established himself as a developer of talent the UCLA Bruins became the place to play. If you wanted to be coached by the best and wanted to win Championships you needed to find a way to get to Westwood and see the Wizard.
So you as the CEO of your company need to lead in the same way. Find talent and develop it. Let it lead and never de-motivate it. Your wins will happen quicker than you may think. You will also find that talent attracts more talent and the big wins and championships are just around the corner. It took Wooden 16 years before he took home the Final Four Prize so be patient but be active.
Direct Marketing is our game at DME; we have left basketball to those who are much younger and more able (and willing) to punish their bodies, like I did years ago. I have three hip replacements to prove I beat it up pretty well. But I like to think I am working just as hard winning and strategizing for customers with their marketing needs as I did for my coach on the basketball court.
You may be the coach or you are that new talent that your coach is so high on. Either way you have a job to do that includes a lot of hard word dedication, practice and teamwork. Business is the ultimate competition. Sales are one on one contests where you must play hard nose to nose offense not defense and someone wins each confrontation. Why not you!
Don’t stall. If it’s going to happen eventually let it happen immediately. Maybe you should be calling our Team here at DME. We are a great talent magnet with some pretty good coaching. We enjoy the win!
