What can Wayne Bennett teach you about Business Success?

"Wayne Bennett believes in himself and his players, and he always will." — Darren Lockyer

Who’s Wayne Bennett? Okay, so stay with me here as I give a little background for all of you who may not be aware of our National Rugby League (football), here in Australia. Wayne Bennett is the current rubgy league coach of the St George Dragons. He has set coaching records for the most grand final wins, and has been coaching professionally since 1988. This year he is off contract with the Dragons, and there has been a frenzy amongst clubs to secure his services.

Why bring up a football coach and business?

It began when reading an article about Wayne Bennett last week, you see, he seems to have this unwavering commitment from his players to be the best they can be. And it had me wondering what we could learn from his style…

1. He believes in himself; and you need to believe in your abilities and yourself when in business. One of your most valuable assets is your mind and what you think.

As we know, being a business owner can at times be solitary work. You’re in your office working on creating a new product, writing an article or finishing off some client work, when the self-doubt begins. It draws you away from your current activity and threatens to derail you.

Yet, when you come from a position of strength, and that strength being the belief in your abilities, then any negative enhancing thoughts (NETs) or self-doubt is removed fairly quickly.

You are on purpose with the goals you have set and know what needs to be done to achieve them – this is why having belief in yourself is so important to you as a business owner.

Each day is about being the best you can be in that very moment.

As Steve Waugh (Past Australian cricket captain) said: “If you want to be mentally tough, do as Wayne Bennett says: follow your beliefs and don't give in to yourself.”

2. He believes in his players; and you need to believe in your products and services. Because if you don’t, then how can you expect your clients to believe in them?

Imagine walking into a sales meeting with a potential client, and ‘sorta’ mentioning that you think your current product could provide a solution to their challenges. You may get the sale, but my bet is that you probably won’t!

If you don’t come from that place of pure conviction that your product is the best fit for their current challenge, then the person sitting opposite you definitely won’t see you as their solution provider.

You’ve got the results and you know what solutions you provide – your role is to communicate this effectively to your ideal clients, so that they know you are the person to call when they need your service.

3. He keeps the process of playing football simple, and he gets out of the way.

Don’t look for complicated business models to grow your business – look for practical, simple models that you can implement effectively and derive results from.

Too often, we see business owners looking at trying to overcomplicate your processes, when in fact if you followed the KISS principle you would have much greater success. By keeping it simple, you are more likely to take action because you know that step by step the results will occur.

When you overcomplicate the process, in most cases, you stop yourself from achieving because it becomes too hard.

If you look at the St George Dragons – they play a pretty boring game of football, because their coach, Wayne Bennett has kept the plays simple. Last year, in his first year as their coach, he led them to win the Grand Finals. His process is a simple step by step system – don’t overcomplicate the play, and each player knows exactly what they’re required to do. They need to turn up each weekend and be the best they can on that day. Simple!

So if you feel you are constantly pushing uphill, stop and add the Wayne Bennett factor to your business. Believe in yourself; believe in your products and services, and go back to the KISS business model.

But most importantly take action to implement your ideas…