Would Your Business Make the Hall of Fame?

A simple question. Using some  measures from baseball and football, would your success rate for new products or services  be enough to get you on the ballot for the Hall of Fame.

Surely, batting .300 for a tenured baseball career would earn you a place on the ballot. And batting .300 in the business world might be a great number if you are looking at close rate on prospects. But to have any chance on getting in for innovation, you better look to football.  Quarterback completion percentage would seem logical. But guess what, Jim Kelly's lifetime completion percentage of 60.1% would probably find you out of business. Chad Pennington tops the completion rate list at  66%, which is probably still 'out of business' for new product introduction success.

How about place kickers. Unfortunately, and much to my surprise, no player that only played as a place kicker has ever been elected to the football HOF. Does not seem logical to me given that championships are won and lost on these foots.  There are 3 players that also played other positions that are in the HOF. I am hopeful a couple of true place kickers will find their way into the HOF.   So, what is best in class for place kickers.  Well, there are only 34 kickers in NFL history with an 80% or better field goal %. Two of the all time greats, Morten Andersen and  Sebastian Janikowski come in at 79.69% and 79.62% respectively. At least I think you keep the doors open at this level - 4 out of 5 new products make it through the uprights.

So maybe you are not making the HOF but is your hit rate on new products or services good enough to have a solid career as a business? And what are you doing to to improve your rate of success? We are firm believers that you need to incorporate the voice of your customer to help improve your success rate.

Drop us a note, we would to hear how you have improved your new product success rate.