After Joe Morris and Thomas Barrows qualified for the Olympics in 2016, they faced an uphill battle for the final six months of the quad, with few gold fleet experiences, little funding, and a scramble to prepare of the Olympics. Their chances of winning a medal at the games, or ending up in the top ten were virtually none, and so, to make the next six months meaningful for them, as well for potential sponsors and supporters who were on this journey with them, they needed to re-position their campaign vision and goals accordingly. If you haven’t checked it out yet, watch Joe and Thomas reflect on their campaign vision in March of 2016 in the video here. Notice in the last few minutes, they talk about their vision: working with Judge and Hans, forging a collaborative team unit, and ultimately leaving behind a legacy for the next generation of 49er sailors.
As athletes, we need to be goal oriented, but we also need to learn to flip the goal setting paradigm on its head to tell our story from the inside out. If you haven’t see
A bulletproof business plan involves an articulate WHY (i.e. Why are you campaigning), a strategic vision for HOW you plan to go about realizing your vision, mission and goals, and finally, a metric driven approach to evaluating WHAT you are doing on a day to day basis to move the needle.
Step two in your campaign process will be to put together a business plan pitch, that objectively outlines where you currently stand, what your plan for improvement is, and how you’ll evaluate progress towards your ultimate goals. The below is a template to help you get started.
Once you have your presentation built out, plan on presenting to a panel of coaches for no more than 30 minutes. We’ll discuss the plan with you, poke holes where we feel you need to develop stronger strategies, help to develop representative metrics, and ultimately help you walk away with laser beam focus on the next steps.
Have fun with this process and use it as an opportunity to develop and tell your story as a team - why are you here, and what sets you apart? Why is your approach going to work?
Examples will be available here as they become available.