What can small business owners learn from the European Super League?
You’re probably wondering, what does the European soccer, more specifically the Super League, have to do with being a small business owner? As it turns out, a lot. These clubs, billion dollar businesses really, just committed an error of such epic proportions, that I’m struggling to think of a reasonable business comparison. As a result, they’ve provided other business owners with a great opportunity to learn from their mistakes.
What is the European Super League?
In case you’re unfamiliar with the ongoing situation, let’s take a step back to provide some background. On April 18th, 12 of the biggest clubs in European soccer announced they would be leaving their existing leagues and forming a new “Super League.” Even if you don’t follow the sport - these are names you would know. Liverpool, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Barcelona, etc.
To put this loosely in North American terms, this would be like the New England Patriots, New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and Las Vegas Raiders announcing they were leaving the NFL to create their own league. And making that announcement completely out of the blue. This was huge news in the sports world, especially throughout Europe.
But why was this a big deal? Money.
I don’t want to bore you with details, because this is supposed to be about small business owners. Let’s just say when the richest teams in Europe decide to form their own league - it disrupts the financial and power structure of all the other leagues. Not to mention, it completely infuriates loyal fan-bases across the world.
Within 48 hours of making the announcement, the clubs had begun to backpedal and withdraw from the league. Let that sink in. 48 hours.
3 Small Business Lessons from the Super League
As we’ve discussed, the 12 clubs who announced membership in the Super League are huge businesses with countless employees. They have marketing staffs, sales staffs, public relations consultants, etc. They had the resources and yet still made the mis-judgement. What does that mean for the rest of us? What can we learn from their mistakes?
1) Own Your Mistakes
Every business is going to make them. Fortunately for most of us, it does not happen on the world stage. For a small business owner, it could be something as simple as an error with a customer order, or a miscommunication in a business relationship. Whatever it is, acknowledge your fault in the situation. From there, you can make the decision to rebuild the relationship or part ways. But at least you’ve acted with integrity - and in the long run, that will serve your business better than anything else.
The clubs in the Super League acknowledged their mistake in judgement quickly and began backtracking. While it may take some time to repair the trust and relationships with their fans and other clubs, they’re in a better position to do so now that they’ve admitted their fault.
2) Know Your Audience
European soccer fans are known as some of the most passionate in all of sports. Owners of organizations as large as these clubs should’ve known their reaction to this announcement well in advance. Either that was not the case, or they weren’t concerned with reaction as much as they should have been. Regardless of what the reason was, it created an enormous public relations problem for them.
What does this mean for your small business? Be sure that you know who your customers are - not just the demographics but what really matters to them. You’ll want to consider things like:
What pain points do they have?
What are the most important things to them (time, relaxation, money, etc.)?
How loyal are they to you?
What are they passionate about?
Understanding what makes your audience tick will help you make more informed decisions and anticipate any reactions your customers may have.
3) Keeping your customers happy is cheaper than getting new ones
It costs money, sometimes a lot of money, to gain a new customer’s attention and convince them to trust your business. Not to mention, it can be a lot of work and a lengthy process to get to that stage. As small business owners, we should do everything in our power to continue to cultivate those customer relationships.
How do we do that? Provide value.
Value can be created in numerous ways. Take time to form relationships and truly understand your customers’ needs (as we discussed above). From there we can focus our efforts on providing them with what is truly valuable to them.
The clubs in the Super League spent years cultivating passionate fan bases that, generation after generation, would continue to be paying customers. By alienating those fans, the clubs jeopardized their future by focusing on shorter term gains.
Wrapping Up
As small business owners, we’re always learning. This situation is a great example of how we can take the experiences of other companies and use them to benefit our own businesses.
