赢之道：高尔夫球比赛带给创业者的五点启示

    本文为与《创业者》杂志的合作内容。下文最初发表于Entrepreneur.com网站。

    职业高尔夫球手菲尔•米克尔森认为，根据不同的情况选择合适的球杆，是比赛成功的第一步。选错球杆就可能丢分，不论你的挥杆多么完美。但适合特殊击球点的球杆的使用效果，也会因球手的能力不同而有所变化。

    创业同样如此。要取得成功，你需要根据具体情况选择合适的工具。这些工具可能是你聘用的某位员工或者你使用的某款软件。处在类似情况下的两家公司，适合它们的工具也会有所不同。如果你经常观看高尔夫球比赛，你可以从中找到许多可以指导创业的信息。以下是高尔夫球比赛带给我们的五点教益：

    1. 创业要比你想象的更难，但这没什么大不了的。

    一开始，创业者往往经验不足，并不知道经营一家公司是多么困难。我们常常以职业选手（高尔夫球赛和商界）为榜样，在大多数时间内，他们似乎总能游刃有余地完成手头的工作。但事实并非如此。创业需要时间、耐心和练习。你只要在练习场呆上五分钟就会明白。几乎所有高尔夫球手或商界领袖在取得非凡成功之前，都经历过数年的艰辛，日复一日地磨练自己的技能。你在付出这些努力的时候，没有人给你荣耀或赞扬。为了实现在创业之初和创业过程中设想的长期目标，创业者必须经历这一切。

    2. 制定一项策略。

    如果你看过职业高尔夫球赛，你肯定听解说员讲过球员或他们的球童在开始一局比赛之前，总会沿着球场走一遍。许多历史上最伟大的高尔夫球手，比如杰克•尼克劳斯，都是通过这种方式来了解球场的布局，确定球洞的位置，发现潜在的问题。之后，优秀的球手会回到起点制定比赛策略。高尔夫球手通常会制定每一个球洞的击球策略。运营公司同样如此。你应该认真考虑制定具体项目的策略、一年、三年、五年甚至更长时间的策略。

    以苹果公司为iPad Air制定的策略为例。iPad Air的售价为499美元，生产成本为274美元。其他竞争对手的平板设备基本上都低于200美元。但由于苹果通过多种营销途径，将其产品与竞争对手区分开来，因此其平板电脑依旧可以卖出高价。这些卖点现在已经家喻户晓，比如设计、软件和易用性等。重点在于，苹果公司的战略家们制定了产品不同阶段的计划，并极其高效地执行了这些策略。

    3. 做自己应该做的事情。

    你见过老虎伍兹或者罗伊•麦克唐纳自己拿高尔夫球袋吗？肯定没有，至少不会在职业比赛期间。为什么？因为这不是他们应该做的工作。他们需要专注于自己的目标：以更少的杆数完成比赛。许多球童也是非常熟练的高尔夫球手，但在两个人的关系当中，他最大的贡献便是拿着高尔夫球袋，帮助职业选手做出高难度击球的决策。对于创业者来说，你应该在身边招募一批能让你以最高水平履行自己职责的人。单枪匹马的创业者也可以将工作外包，让自己有时间做一些对公司利害攸关的工作。如果你是一家初创公司的CEO，你不应该再为外卖什么时候给员工送餐这种事费心。委派和信任你聘用的员工，让他们各司其职，做好自己应该做的工作。

    4. 直面逆境。

    我想没有几位高尔夫球手会告诉你，他们打出过完美的比赛。我经常听到高尔夫球手们说，你只能期待“错误最少”的一局比赛。即便最出色的比赛，通常也会有一两次击球让球手陷于困难的境地。关键是要保持专注，不要让一两次坏的击球毁掉后面的比赛。如果你是创业者，你会遇到许多意外，这些意外会对你产生负面影响。重要的是要记住，你必须专注于自己的方向（目标/球洞），不要因为一次失误便失魂落魄，无心比赛。

    家具零售商Discount Designer Furnishings的老板珍妮弗•史考利，曾经沦落到破产和无家可归的境地，但后来却拥有了一家年收入30万美元的公司。与她一样，你可能需要改造或者拓展自己的能力，但你必须始终专注于目标，避免让负面情绪影响你。

    5. 开局慢热没关系，强势收尾才重要。

    许多公司所有人，尤其是创业者，一旦一开始没有“火起来”便会自暴自弃。他们脑海里充满了质疑的声音，他们可能会怀疑自己和他们的决定。高尔夫比赛共有18洞——分为前九洞和后九洞。热心的球迷和职业选手会告诉你，冠军通常在后九洞决出的。许多球手开局并不顺利，但经过几杆之后，他们慢慢找到了比赛节奏。之后他们会保持这种势头，直到比赛结束。

    创业难，但一开始的不顺畅并不意味着未来不会持续走强。在坚持数周或数月完善公司运营之前，不要质疑自己。如果你每天的工作没有带来你所希望的成功或利润，可以对你的产品或经营方式做一些改变。生存下去，寻找正确的发展途径，并取得最终胜利。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    审校：任文科

    This post is in partnership with Entrepreneur. The article below was originally published atEntrepreneur.com.

    According to professional golfer Phil Mickelson, choosing the right club for the situation is the first step if you’re going to be successful at any point. If you choose the wrong club you will miss your mark, no matter how well you swing. Also, the club that is right for a particular shot will change depending on the player’s ability.

    The same is true in business. To succeed, you need to choose the right tool for the situation. That tool may be a particular hire that you make or what software you use. The tool that is right for your business in a particular situation can be different from what is right for another business in a similar situation. If you look at the game of golf long enough, you start seeing ways it can inform your entrepreneurial career. Here are five of those lessons.

    1. It’s harder than you thought, and that’s OK.

    Entrepreneurs often begin their businesses with a fair degree of inexperience, not realizing that running your own business is hard. We often look at the pros (in golf and in business), and most of the time they make it look easy. It’s not. It just takes time, patience, and practice. All you have to do is spend five minutes at a driving range to find that out. It is exceedingly rare to find the athlete or business leader who reached great success without years of painstaking, often repetitive, honing of skills. Much of this hard work is done without glory or praise. The entrepreneur goes through it all for the long-term goals he or she envisioned at the beginning and along the way.

    2. Have a strategy.

    If you watch a professional golf tournament, you’ll hear commentary about the players or their caddies walking the course before they play a round. Many of history’s greatest players, like Jack Nicklaus, did this to get the layout of the course, know the hole positions and discover any potential problems. After doing this, top players will go back and develop a strategy for how they will attack the course. Often times, players will have a strategy for how they play each and every hole. The same is true when running your own business. You should strongly consider building strategies for individual projects, your first year, three years, five years, and beyond.

    Consider Apple’s iPad Air strategy. The iPad Air sells for $499 and costs $274 to make. Some competing tablets sell for close to $200 less. Still, Apple is able to sell its tablet for these premiums because of the multiple ways company marketing has differentiated this product from competitors. These selling points are almost universally famous now. They include design, software and usability, among others. The point is, company strategists created plans for different stages of products and executed them, obviously highly effectively in this case.

    3. Do the job you’re meant to do.

    Do you ever see Tiger Woods or Rory McDonald carry their golf bag? You won’t, at least not during a professional tournament. Why not? It’s not the job they’re suppose to be doing. They need to focus on finishing the course in fewer strokes than anyone else. Many caddies are also very accomplished golfers, but their best contribution to the duo is carrying the bag and helping the professionals talk through difficult shots. For every business owner, you need to have people surrounding you that help you function at your highest level. Even solo-preneurs can outsource tasks that would free up their time to do more productive things for their business. If you’re CEO of a startup, you shouldn’t be tasked with organizing when and how the food delivery service brings meals for employees during the week. Delegate, and trust the employees you’ve hired to deliver in the areas they’ve been hired for.

    4. Count on adversity.

    I doubt any golfer would tell you that they’ve ever played a perfect round. Time and time again, I hear golfers say that the best you can hope for is a round with the “fewest mistakes.” Even the best rounds usually have one or two shots that put players in a difficult spot. The key is to stay focused and not let one or two bad shots color the ones that come after. If you are running your own business, there will be some surprises that take you off guard and have a negative impact on you. The important thing to remember is that you must stay focused on where you need to go (the goal/the hole), and don’t let a bad break here or there take you mentally out of the game.

    Consider the example of Jennifer Scully, owner of Discount Designer Furnishings. She went from being broke and homeless to owning a business that makes over $300,000 a year. Like her, you may need to adapt, or even stretch your abilities, but you have to keep your eye on the goal and avoid letting emotion negatively affect you.

    5. Even if you start slow, finish strong.

    Many business owners, especially entrepreneurs, get down on themselves if they don’t start out “on fire.” Doubts fill their minds and they may question themselves and their decisions. In golf, you have the front nine and back nine — 18 holes. Avid golf fans and the pros themselves will tell you that championships are often decided on the back nine. Many players start off shaky, but they find their rhythm after a few holes. Then they continue to build that momentum all the way through the end.

    Being a business owner is tough, but just because the beginning may not go smoothly, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a strong run ahead of you. Don’t truly start to question yourself until you’ve had many weeks or months of refining business operations. If your daily work just isn’t resulting in the success or profit you’d hoped for, make changes to your productor to how you do things. Stay in the game and find a way to finish strong.