Load Half Full, Load Half Empty?

I coach a peewee hockey team, and every time I go to practice, I feel invigorated by the opportunity to help young kids grow their passion and facility for the game of hockey.

There are so many things I could see that we can improve upon – our skating, puck handling, passing, our positioning on the ice.

I have often wondered why so many coaches get so focused on the mistakes and get so frustrated in coaching their teams. Some of it has to do with their own sense of self, and worried about how the team’s performance might reflect on them. It also has to do with the way we look at the world.

“Is the glass half-empty, or is the glass half-full?”

When you start running a business, it’s not as important whether it is running poorly or well – it’s whether you are improving.

I remember a quote from Tiger Woods this year in which reporters asked him about his game and his length off the tee. He said that he hits the ball longer than he has ever before – it’s just that all the new players hit is so much further. Which speaks to the point that even if you are running your business well, you need to make sure you are improving.

Satchell Paige once said, “Don’t look back, someone might be gaining on you.”

I think we should listen to a legend who pitched in the Major Leagues until he was 56 years of age!

When you invest in trucking software or freight brokerage software, the single biggest benefit you get is the ability to CONTINOUSLY IMPROVE! (My caps key didn’t get stuck – it’s just that important.)

When you have data, when you track and measure your business, you have information. When you have information, you can make decisions on how to IMPROVE your operations.

Good trucking software and good freight brokerage software should come with pre-loaded reports, or reporting utility, which allows you to access the reports that you need to run your business more effectively, week in and week out.

You should be able to pull information from the trucking software system and use it as an input into a decision-making situation – i.e. a weekly or monthly meeting. Businesses are notorious for operating on the whims and opinions of people, especially people who have the most power, typically the owner.

But is this truly a reflection of reality?

You should be asking…

• What does the data say?
• What are our customers doing? What are they saying?

Getting good information from trucking software should allow you to make good decisions as to…

• What Customers are good for your business? Which are bad?
• Which Venders are helping you make money?
• What Equipment is performing best?
• Which Routes are the most lucrative?

So when you go to work today, be invigorated by what you can do to improve your business each and every day. Instill that idea in your people – take the focus off the problems and recast them in terms of what opportunities lies before you.

Maybe even hum that line from the Beatles song,

“It’s getting better all the time…………”

Couldn’t hurt, right?