Business Lessons from the NFL Draft
April 22nd, 2010 | Small Business | No Comments »First off, let me admit. This isn’t going to be a highly researched blog post. Not a shocker, as I love to write about whatever I’m watching on TV. And what I’m watching is the NFL draft. Specifically, I”m watching my Minnesota Vikings passing up on selecting Jimmy Clausen in the first round — trading their position in the draft to the Detroit Lions. This leads to no pick in the first round. About an hour ago, I was climbing the walls, as the Vikings need a quarterback, and Jimmy Clausen (though he’s from Notre Dame) is a good player.
An hour has passed and I’m no longer doubting the wisdom of my team, as the first round is over and Jimmy Clausen hasn’t been picked and when the second round starts up tomorrow, the Vikings get to pick the second player of the day. The Vikings showed patience and they’ll pick up the player they need (hopefully) and also gain picks from Detroit. So, in watching the first round of the draft, I’ve taken away a few business lessons for KikScore:
1. Patience generally pays off — ok, I’m being a bit influenced on Michael Lewis’ Moneyball on this — generally reputations are overrated, and role players are interchangeable. Let others’ impatience work to your advantage and squeeze your competitors as hard as possible when they don’t realize the actual market value of an asset.
2. Quantity beats Quality — at least in terms of talent selection. Put another way, would you rather have one A student or three B+ students. I’ll take the several B students — as there are too many D students out there that you may wind up with.
3. Position is Key — If you really need a project manager, coming across a great salesperson doesn’t really help you. Draft for you business based on need.
I think that’s the best I can do for business lessons from the draft. If you haven any suggestions, shoot them on over.