Looking To Bethpage

What do we mean by Shotmaker?  Shotmaker is a term that I knew a long time ago when playing golf professionally.  Most golfers know someone who they would consider a Shotmaker.  It is the person who might be in the worst lie.  Behind a tree.  Completely out of the hole.  And yet, time and time again they somehow find a way to pull off the shot.  And next thing you know they are putting for birdie and winning the match.

These are Shotmakers.  It is this unspoken ability to see a shot no one else sees.  To see the path to victory when most golfers would have laid up to protect the par.  To believe that the birdie is still possible even with the tree, and the wind, and all of the other challenges standing between the Shotmaker and their destination.

The funny thing is that when I stopped playing competitive golf, I forgot about the Shotmakers.   For the longest time, golf was just something that I used to play.  Accounting was my job, and while it was fun to think about the time spent on the golf course.  It wasn’t something that related in any way to balance sheets.

And then came Covid.  Those first few weeks during March 2020 were some of the worst weeks I have ever seen.  For me, being your accountant isn’t just something I do for a living.  I started our company on a mission to help business owners succeed.  My passion in this work is to help business owners make the best decisions so that their dreams of creating can become a reality.

My background is one that gives me a unique insight into the life of the entrepreneur.  After all, as the only daughter of an entrepreneur whose business failed in front of my eyes, I have always understood exactly what is at risk for most business owners.

Which is why in those early weeks of Covid, I suddenly found myself seeing the many similarities between sports and business for the first time.

In those first weeks of Covid, we all needed to find our inner Shotmaker.  Suddenly we were all standing behind the tree, completely out of play, trying to see the path forward.

The crazy thing was that even in the worst of times during those early weeks, some people could.  Some of my clients were talking about the amazing opportunity that would be on the other side of whatever this was.  “Not everyone will survive”, said one of my clients.  “Which means I have a chance of having my business on every corner in the next 5 years.”

This of course wasn’t the norm.  But the fascinating thing was that this business owner was faced with the same grim daily reality of no sales, government shutdowns, and no guarantee that things would change in the near future as everyone else.  And yet, just like the Shotmaker they saw the way out. 

From that point forward I realized that in order for the resources we provided our clients to be successful, we needed to talk mindset.  That the first step in building a strategy forward had to be making sure that the business owner believed the success was possible.  Just like the golfer trying to make the winning putt, they must BELIEVE in the win first. 

While the Covid 19 pandemic is behind us, the struggle is real for many in the hospitality industry.  It has been a long way back from 2020, with many challenges no one could have predicted along the way.  From rising food prices, inflation, a changing customer base, to a labor rate that seems to have eliminated any margin that was left. 

Once again we all must be Shotmakers.  Which is why we have brought back our SHOTMAKER podcast, to bring you the many lessons of Shotmaking we can learn from sports.  

I believe there is so much we can learn from sports and the adversity most athletes face everyday.  And yet, the best find a way to take that next shot and win.  

Bringing us back to our Shotmaker roots, over the next few weeks we will be launching our LOOKING to Bethpage series.  

Based on the rebuilding of the US Ryder Cup team, we will explore the elements of rebuilding, leadership, adversity, and moving forward that EVERY Shotmaker needs as we create our path forward in 2024.   

We are all in this together!

-Anne

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