Getting from Good to Great

Author Jim Collins writes about what it takes to go from good to great in his book of the same name. Collins talks about getting the 'right people on the bus', Level 5 Leadership, Confronting the Brutal Facts, and the Hedgehog Concept. While these may seem like random phrases, once you read 'Good to Great' you'll see why this book was a best seller. When I get side tracked about the pettiness that goes on sometimes amongst other coaches, I have to remind myself that I am not in competition with any other coaching company, but I am doing is trying to build a Good to Great Company. The other minutiae is just that.

As far back as I can remember I wanted to own my own business and have the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted. It started in high school when I started a landscaping company. I worked a few other part-time jobs on the side as well, but I always felt if I needed more income, I could pick up another lawn customer or I could work more hours at my other jobs. My landscaping job eventually paid for my college tuition. My other jobs included a Sunday morning paper route, life guarding and being in the Marine Corps Reserve. Add to this playing a varsity sport in college, and you could say I was pretty busy.

Coaching as a business is reliant on getting customers and that means getting people in the athlete pipeline. For the month of September, I set a goal of accomplishing six things. Each had to with getting athletes in the pipeline for D3. I made a list of all of our former atheltes, their contact info and the last time I had contacted them. Next I made a list of every athlete that contacted us in the last eighteen months. Combined these two lists added up to about 120 athletes. I sent a personal to each one. What happened? I ended up with about 8 new athletes for the D3 coaches. The next goal was to write an article for one of the major magazines. I contacted one of the editors with an idea for an article and we agreed on a January 2009 article that will appear in the leading triathlon publication in the industry. My 4th goal was to work on advertising. For the last two years I haven't spent a dime on advertising. You may think this is crazy or even self destructive but the only thing that happened was that our business grew. We didn't grow off the charts but we grew. Lastly, my fifth goal was to put together group workouts here in Boulder. Mission accomplished. From these few things which only took a matter of hours, I improved our stable of coached athletes. It's not always the big things that make the difference but the little things that are done on daily basis - building your business one brick at a time, taking the time to make sure each brick is level and strong enough to put the next brick on top of it. Repeating this process over and over is how a strong successful business goes from good to great.

The Man on Top of the Mountain

As a sat looking up at Mt. Princeton on Sunday night, I wondered what it was going to take tomorrow to get up that mountain. It was Colorado's 10th highest 14er and it sat at 14, 197 feet above sea level. I have done five 14ers over the last few years and I am usually in late season triathlon shape for these epic climbs. This season, I have taken a lot of time off and am not quite in the shape I have been in the past. I made sure to fuel up at dinner and more than anything I steeled myself mentally for the effort it was going to take. Yes, I have some experience with the outdoors, and I consider myself in better than average shape, but you need a lot more than experience and fitness to get to the top of a 14er. My thoughts wandered to not only getting up the mountain but the return trip as well. Getting to the top is only half the battle. If you don't make it down, well, I wouldn't consider that a successful trip. There have been lots of casualties over the years on Mt. Everest - people who took the chance to summit, but they never made it back down to share their success. Climbing a mountain isn't all fun and games. Its dangerous, and you have to be prepared. Even though our trip would only be around 6-7 hours, we were preparing for an overnight. That's the way I was taught to be prepared when going into the wilderness. Going on a 2 day overnight? Pack enough dry clothes for 4 days. Bring extra matches, batteries for flashlights and food to last in case you get lost. Preparation may take a little longer, but you'll be a lot safer and more comfortable should things go wrong.

This made my think a bit about what it takes to create a great company - not one that just pumps out training plans and gives people advice, but a company that creates jobs for people who are passionate about coaching, who work hard, and want to not just be good at what they do, but to BE great and to DO great things. I wonder why some coaches don't make it to the top of the mountain. Is it because they don't have the 'can-do' attitude or is it because they don't have the skills? Maybe they want to give 90% but not 100%. Maybe they don't know how to do the little things that it takes to be successful. In the past month, I've narrowed down my weekly objectives to three things and its been making a difference. I am 2 weeks closer to my BHAG then I was when September started and I am excited to see what the next few months bring. In my next post I'll share with you one of the objectives that I have been working on with my business. Its not by accident that people make it to the top of the mountain. Its by hard work and sometimes its by sheer determination.

After all is said and done, the man at the top of the mountain didn't just fall there.

The Road to Coaching Part II


Tony B. was the coach who drafted me 1st overall when I went from minors to majors in little league (LL). His son was on the team, but he wasn't one of those coaches who had to have his son play shortstop. If I were pitching, Tommy played short, and if not, then I was playing short, with Tommy at third. We had a good team and had a lot of fun that summer playing baseball, having pool parties and just hanging out. Tony instilled a lot of confidence in me that summer. We had a great season and came within 4 outs of beating the undefeated Fiore team one Friday night. I had 14 strikeouts while pitching that night and it was the highlight of my LL career. Tony knew how to get most out of everyone and really knew how to make a team gel so much that I was friends with some of the guys on that team all the way into college.

Armand B. was our basketball coach in grammar school. He had been coaching so long at our school, that my brothers had played for him in the late 60s! Here I was playing for him in 1982. Armand was old school; yelling at you for messing up a play, or throwing a chair when he didn't like the call. He was the original Bobby Knight. Armand would make us do hundreds of lay-ups, free throws and sprints. We went over our plays so many times, we could do them blind folded. He wasn't the nicest coach, but definitely one of the best at teaching fundamentals.

Al Morro was my high school football coach and the toughest SOB and at the same time the smartest coach I've ever had. He did more with less than any other coach out there. My high school was a public school, one of four city schools. Unlike a lot of public high schools, we had to take an admission test to get in because it was a college prep school. I think our starting freshman class had 450 kids, and we graduated 220. Coach Morro didn't have a lot to work with, as he had a bunch of 'smart' kids who weren't that athletic. We were small and quick. That's what Al told us everyday - 'we are smart, we are quick, and we love to hit'. That was our mantra, every practice, every game, every season. Al had our defense disguised long before Bill Belichick's schemes and he called us 'organized chaos'. We always started in a 4-4. That's 4 guys on the line, and 4 guys right behind them. It worked well, since our offense stunk, as I remember losing a bunch of games 8-6, 14-0, 14-6 and so on. My junior year was Coach Al's last one as a head coach. We wanted to win one for him. Coach played in the 1940 Sugar Bowl with Boston College. In the 1950s he led our high school to state football championship like 8 out of 10 years. Our last game of the season was for all the marbles. If we won, we'd be playing in the Super Bowl. Coach Morro was different that week - our practices were short, we didn't go over the plays time and again. I am not sure if Coach didn't want to set himself up for a big disappointment or if he didn't want the attention of being in the big game again. In the end, Coach Morro didn't want to win - he had seen first hand how winning had ruined some teams. He thought losing built character and thought winning created big egos and showboating. During the game, we hung in there with the best team in our division and with the exception of three plays we matched our opposition head to head. Our opponent returned a punt for a touchdown, ran an interception back for a touchdown and had a 80 yard run from the line the line of scrimmage for a touchdown. It was a heart breaking loss. The most important think Coach Morro taught me was that to succeed in life you need the 5 D's of life: Drive, Desire, Dedication, Determination, and Discipline. To some of you reading this, that may sound familiar. When I moved to Colorado in 1995 I created a page to represent the things the motivated me on my refrigerator. I had a picture of the mountains, an American flag, and D4. The mountains represented strength to me. The flag represented making team USA in short course triathlon, and the D4 were the Ds that Coach Morro taught. I had decided that Drive and Desire were one in the same. While I was thinking of a name for my coaching business, I thought about that picture on my fridge, and figured D4 would be a good fit. After thinking about it some, I decided triathlon being three sports, I should name my company D3 and that's how the name for D3 Multisport originated. Thanks Coach Morro!

Happy First Birthday Hope!

A year to the day (09.04.07) Hope Ricci came into the world and pretty much turned mine upside down. Not knowing the sex of our baby kept us guessing, and it wasn't until her little rumpus came out that I saw she was a girl. Her head, shoulder and back were all telling me 'linebacker'. At 9 pounds, 11 ounces, 21 inches and 15 inch head you'd be fooled too. :)

Hard to believe she'll be a year old this week. She been walking for 6 weeks, climbs up onto everything, and if chased, will run (and shriek) from you. My journey down the path of fatherhood is just beginning, and every day I am amazed at how delicate, tough, focused, adorable, and just plain old precious she is. It's true that you don't realize how much your parents love you until you have a child. You say you might take a bullet for a best friend or even your spouse, but for your child you wouldn't even think about it. You want nothing more than for that little baby to be safe from everything evil in this world. Over the last year I realize how tough that job will be, but how much I look forward to embracing it. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!

The Road to becoming a Coach, Part I

Growing up the youngest of 4 boys, I was always schooled on the fundamentals of athletics. I was late to the party, arriving nine years after my closest brother and 15 and 16 years after my two oldest brothers. I have vivid memories of my brothers hitting me ground ball after ground ball at the age of 9 and on. I remember shooting free throws for hours on end, or practicing my jump shot from the left side of the key, off the dribble of course. One day while I taking grounders from my brother Kevin, I took one to the face. I was pretty shaken up, and kept lifting my head away from the ball on the ensuing grounders. Finally, my brother walked over to me, put the ball on the ground in front of me and said, 'Can that ball hurt you? Are you tougher than that ball?'. While I started to argue, that yes, in fact the ball could hurt me, he was already walking away, getting ready to hit me more ground balls. I didn't really have any excuse to lift my head away, because I knew I would be giving into my fears. I didn't want to disappoint my brother but at the same time, I wanted to be the best baseball player on the field when I was playing.

Fast forward to 1979, and I am trying out for the local little league minor leagues. I hit well that day, gobbled up all the ground balls and showed that I could pitch too. All that practice was rewarded when I was selected first in the draft, to the worst team in the league (um is that a reward?). In my first game, I was playing second base and in the final inning we were clinging to a small lead. The opposing team had a runner on first as the batter hit a high chopper up the middle that was going to be a sure hit into center field. I ran behind second base, snared the ball, ran back over the bag for the force out and threw out the runner at first. A game ending double play and needless to say, my training had paid off.

Over the years, I've had some great coaches, and some, um, not so great coaches. The great coaches were my Little League coach, Tony B, my grammar school basketball coach Armand B, and my football coach in high school, Al Morro (the legendary hammer coach) I've had other coaches as well, and all of these coaches, good or bad, have impacted my coaching style. Some were yellers, and some were not. I've always been motivated by 'good job', 'nice play' or 'you'll get 'em next time'. I've never been motivated by the 'get your head out of your butt' comment. Even though some of the above coaches used the negative reinforcement tactic, it didn't really inspire me to get better. This is one of the most important parts of coaching: an athlete has to trust the coach! If not, all the talent and the greatest training plan in the world are worthless. I'll touch more on this in a later post. In Part II I'll write more about the men who helped mold me as a coach.

New Year's in September

My career as a coach started in 1988, but my roots were growing long before that. I've been coaching triathletes since 1992, and swimmers since 1989. I worked in the mutual fund business, and even worked for some pretty big companies at the peak. Later on, I worked at a few smaller companies as as an analyst and in August 2001 I left the finance world. I've always felt most comfortable coaching or in reality, teaching. That's what a competent coach is, a teacher. Whether it be coaching teenagers on a swim team, adolescents who were learning to swim, or adults who were getting in a pool for the first time in their lives. I enjoy the feeling of giving back - teaching a new skill or helping someone accomplish something they didn't think they could. That's quite a thrill for me. I love taking a 1:10 swimmer for Ironman distance, and turning them into a sub 1:00 swimmer. I love taking someone from being a 4:00 Ironman marathoner and turning him or her into a 3:1x Ironman marathoner. I enjoy what I do, and its hard to even call it work most days. There are certainly things I have to do to make sure the bills are paid, but I get so much enjoyment out of my career, that I know I am one of the fortunate people out there.

Being a competitive person, I am always ready for a challenge. A few years back, I thought that there was a limit to how much one can make coaching triathletes and now, I don't think there is a ceiling. If you do the math, its quite simple. There are 100,000+ registered USAT triathletes in the good old US of A and plenty more who aren't annual members. If one coach had 1% of the market, he'd have 1000 athletes. No one coach can handle 1,000 athletes. Not even Vince Lombardi could coach that many people, and trust me Vince can coach! I've challenged myself to write down some off the wall revenue numbers and I've given myself 18 months to reach them. You might ask why I chose 18 months - well I do well in about 18 month cycles. When I started my MBA program while working full time and training for triathlon, I decided I would finish in 18 months. That meant some long nights, and some heavy course loads (winter, summer, spring, fall), but I got it done. Then in July 2005, I decided I was going to put 18 solid months into growing my business, and by the end of 2006, I had doubled revenues. So, now I've put some numbers onto the motivation cork board in my office and each day I look at them, and spend some part of my day working toward reaching those goals. Heck, I don't know if I'll make it, but I thought it would be fun to share the journey. I can tell you what I know, how I got where I am, and maybe you can learn a thing or two from my many mistakes. One of the most important things I learned even as a teenager, was that if you want to be great, surround yourself with great people. That means people who are smarter, wealthier, and yeah, that means your ego has to take a back seat. More on that in a minute. One of the best books to read on this philosophy was written by Howard Shultz, Pour Your Heart into It. Imagine my surprise many years later when I picked up this book, read it from cover to cover, and had my lesson reiterated from one of the most successful businessmen of our time.

As for how D3 Multisport began: I've been triathlon coaching in Boulder, CO, full time since 2001; seven full years of not relying on a paycheck from 'the man'. Over that course of time, I've gone from a one man show and coaching upwards of 50 athletes a year, to a business with seven other coaches who all have an equal passion for coaching and helping others achieve their dreams. These days, I only coach about 10 athletes a year and our coaches are about the same, give or take three or four. I've made it this far, with the help of a lot of smart people. I don't ever call our company successful, because I think there is so much more to accomplish: I am not published, we don't have 200 athletes that we coach one-on-one and we haven't had anyone win Ironman or the Olympics (yet). I don't even know that those things would be considered successful to most people. Getting back to surrounding yourself with great people; Ron, Matt, Bud, and Mexico Bill - have all been great mentors to me not only business wise, but in life as well. They have all showed me, whether they knew it or not at the time, that it's important that you balance your family and your career. Making money is great and all, but if you had all the money in the world and no one to share it with, would you be happy? Probably not. I hope to share a little bio on each of my mentors as the months roll by, just to prove that nice guys can finish first, and that success isn't a chance occurrence.

So, where does that leave me today? Well, with my new goals firmly on the motivation board and my sights set on new heights for D3 Multisport, I am treating today like New Year's and this month like January. It's a new beginning, with new goals, new aspirations, and new dreams. I hope you'll join me for the ride!