On August 10-14, nearly 1,900 The UPS Store franchisees, associates, vendors and corporate staff gathered in Nashville, TN for the bi-annual The UPS Store Convention. The purpose of the convention is to bring franchisees together to network, learn best practices, connect with their peers and discover what lies ahead for the brand. The theme of this year’s convention was “Build Your Future.”
Peak Performance Expert and Former National Football League (NFL) player Eric Boles took the stage and fired up the crowd at the general session on August 11. After playing for the New York Jets and the Green Bay Packers, Boles understands the importance of team work and great leadership. He coached the convention attendees on ways to “unleash your best.”
Boles said that despite the rapid pace of change, you have to ask yourself, “What are you doing with what’s already in your hands?”
“I get competition,” said Boles. “I promise you what happened in April, which is called the NFL draft, is only exciting to the fans. The players hate it because every year, they go and draft a player who can play to 80 percent of your productivity that costs 20 percent as much as your salary. So continuous improvement is kind of built in. So I get this constant change and it’s going to be continuous.”
He translated this to running a business because this rapid pace of change also applies to the expectations of customers.
“What used to be considered exceeding expectations even a year or two ago, to your customers today is simply meeting their expectations. Not that you’re not working as hard, it’s just your expectations change.”
Boles emphasized the importance of not only growing your customer base, but maintaining and holding on to the customers you do have. In order to do this, you have to expand what you do with them.
“The business will grow no further than you grow. Your own individual growth is so critical to the growth of your business.”
One essential part of growth is taking risks. Boles encouraged the audience to not become complacent in their businesses but to see the potential and get comfortable take risks.
“Potential is dormant ability. It’s unused success. It’s everything that I can be, that you can be, but have not yet become. It’s everything you can do but have not yet done.”
Boles said that every person and every business has the potential to be great but “the easier it is to be good, the more difficult it can be to be great.”
He emphasized that there are no shortcuts on the path to greatness. In fact, every time people think they can get success in a minute, they insult the people around them who had to work hard and overcome obstacles to achieve success.
“In business, there are no short cuts. Short cuts will get you cut short of your goal,” said Boles.
He instructed the audience to focus on the basic fundamentals of their business, determine what works and start working really hard to execute those fundamentals every day. Only then, can they reach their full potential and achieve greatness.
Boles challenged the audience by asking, “What would your business look like if you weren’t afraid to fail?”
He encouraged them not to let fear get in the way of success.
“Fear is selfish but love is selfless,” said Boles. “You have to ask yourself, ’Do you love something more than you’re afraid of something?’ Tap into that and then your business can grow beyond you to reach its potential for generations to come. Never let fear get in the way.”
For more information on Eric, click here.