Over the course of the last 8 years my company has been in business we’ve experimented with lots of taglines. We changed it frequently, especially in our early years, and in large part we did this to assist us with selling our services. As I’ve written about before, selling was the most difficult hurdle we had to overcome as we were just getting started in the website agency world. One of the tagline’s we used for several years was “Beautiful Websites That Work.” And as I’m working with my team to complete my first book on web design and user experience, the topic of why we do things the way we do comes up often and frequently. In one recent team meeting we were discussing why we idolize Dennis Rodman the basketball player for our company work ethic. This old tagline came up, and that is the story I’ll share now.
Dennis Rodman, Undisputed Greatest Rebounder Ever
With Lebron James and Tom Brady winning the championships in their respective sports this year, we hear in the news lots of talk about who is “the greatest of all time.” All this talk and comparisons. Today I set the record straight.
In the game of basketball specifically, a sport is so dynamic and team-driven, I don’t think its possible to say that just “one player” was the greatest ever. I think it has to be the team itself. Let me explain.
The bulls ’96-’98 run was one of the most historic runs in pro sports ever. The combination of MJ, Pippen and Rodman were an unstoppable force. The league MVP for any given year is determined by a committee vote, and it’s heavily weighted on who the scoring title leader was that year. Some examples of great basketball players that will never win the league’s most valuable player award:
Jimmy Butler: A player like Jimmy Butler will probably never win this type of award because on any given game he might score just 10 points, but he’ll also have 14 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals.
John Stockton: John Stockton, albeit retired, never won this award in his 19-year NBA career. He was the league assist leader in 9 seasons. Nearly 50% of his career he lead the entire league in assists, now that is saying something! He also lead the league in defensive steals twice.
Dennis Rodman: A player like Dennis Rodman will never win either. During the Chicago Bulls championship ’95-96 season, the year Michael Jordan won every single league accolade, Dennis averaged 15 rebounds a game, nearly double the average rebounds per game of the league’s second highest rebounder. However, over his 13 year NBA career, he scored an average of 10 points a game only once. Fans would literally chant for him to shoot because he never did, because scoring was not his role. Hence why he never won the league’s MVP award, and why he is not even in the conversation as being the greatest of all time in his sport.
What Most People Don’t Know About Dennis Rodman (The Backstory)
Dennis Rodman won 5 NBA championships during his NBA tenure. After winning his first two titles with the Detroit Pistons in 1989 and 1990. Around then is when he started his streak of 8 consecutive league rebounding titles. Do you know what having a player like Rodman on your team, doing everyone’s dirty work, does for your team? After going separate ways with the Detroit Pistons he joined David Robinson and his squad, the San Antonio Spurs. In the two years he played there, he lifted Robinson to his 2 best career years ever, helping him to average over 30 points a game and winning the league scoring title in one year, and league MVP in the other. The Spurs never did not win a championship with the combination of Robinson and Rodman, and after a short meeting with Phil Jackson, Dennis would move to Chicago in 1995 to rebound for the likes of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Doing this almost guaranteed Michael Jordan would win the scoring title as well as the league MVP award in 1996, 97′ and ’98–which he did.
Over Dennis Rodman’s NBA career he played on the same team as the league scoring leader, league MVP or Finals MVP a total of seven times. Only three of those years did he team up with Michael Jordan.
When people talk about the “Greatest Of All Time” most only look at offense, MVP’s and championships. But basketball is a team sport, much like running a business is. As the business owner, you are certainly the GOAT for your business.
In basketball, to win a championship you need to have explosive leadership, team chemistry, and a front office. Championships and MVP award-caliber players don’t happen without those 3 things. These things can happen as a result of the what people actually do see on the outside, sure, but they mostly happen because of the work being done behind closed doors. Work that no one sees and work that does not frequently receive accolade.
And now… A word from Dennis Rodman about his role on the team: (volume up) ? ? ?
In basketball Dennis Rodman knows he is supposed to always show up ready to work his tail off for his team, and rebound the freaking ball. Pretty simple, right?
A website that works is a website does what it is supposed to do.
The bare minimum and most basic things a website should do for any sized business:
Establish an online presence for your business.
When people search for you they can find you, and is the entity that people—your customers–can refer their friends to learn more about your business.
Provide basic information.
Basic information like where to find you on a map, what your phone number is, how to contact you and what service or product you can help them with.
Provide value.
It answers your customers questions before they ask them about your product or service and is generally helpful and friendly.
At this point I’ve shared a lot about Dennis Rodman’s accolades, so you also know he does more than what he says he does when he says he gets paid to “rebound and kick peoples’ asses.” Well, you guessed it, so does your website…
A website that works does more than what it is supposed to do, it goes above and beyond the call of duty
But what does it mean to go above and beyond the call of duty?
One thing we learn our favorite NBA player from ESPN’s 30 for 30 films is that Dennis knew the importance of psychology, and would use that to exploit the team’s he played against into forgetting what the real objective was during the game. He would get inside their heads, and force them to make mistakes during the game instead of playing their game. Opponents would be so focused on proving to Dennis that they were good enough to be playing him that they would forget the real objective for why they were there–to win the game. Rodman’s opponents would get so focused, so frustrated with him that they would stop playing basketball and take their frustration out on him. Often times they would stop executing their own game plans altogether, if they weren’t getting ejected! When Dennis wasn’t beating his opponents on the boards he was using his genius by using his voice, interacting with the opposing team’s best players, and getting inside their heads.
When we relate this back to your business, and for your website to go above and beyond the call of duty (like Rodman), it should:
Deeply understand the psychology of your customers.
It understands what information matters most to people, and it understands how the size of the screen the website is viewed on can change the tone and voice of the information displayed and has already pre-adjusted for that use case. It was built mobile-first, meaning the voice and tone of the website was designed so that the message is clear and makes sense to the user on a smartphone first, and that message and tone does not change as the screen sizes slowly increase.
Make the GOAT’s job easy.
As the owner of your growing business where your attention is focused is of extremely high priority. When it’s easy for your customers to contact you with inquires, questions and new business you don’t have to work as hard. The work comes to you. All you have to do is score!
Dennis Rodman’s job wasn’t to score, we too know our role! ?
Do all the dirty work.
As you are already focused on growing your business, your website should do everything you either don’t have time for, or don’t want to do. In this way, it also gives you peace of mind that things are being taken care of in the background for you. Freeing you up to focus on what matters as the greatest-of-all-time leader of your business!
And Ultimately, bring you what matters most to you and your business
It’s focused on the bottom line, delivering opportunities for
new connections (wins),
building your reputation
ultimately growing your business year after year (championships).
Wins, and championships. ? ? ? ? ? ?
What Makes A Website ? Beautiful?
The public eye has a much different view of Dennis Rodman. Even when he was winning championships in Detroit and rebounding titles for the Spurs and Bulls, he was known best for his bizarre haircut. For him it all started when he saw the movie Demolition Man first released in 1993. It was then that Dennis knew he wanted to color his hair just like Wesley Snipes from the film. And before his first time stepping onto the court in San Antonio he did just that! The uproar in media and adoration from fans was so great, Dennis decided to continue coloring his hair. Over the course of his NBA career and especially when he started coloring his hair he had the public eye on him. The NBA was his platform, his hair was his loudspeaker for expression and sharing his personality. Not only was Dennis a terrific team player that worked harder than anyone on the court, he did it with style. And always made a lasting impression on his fans.
Earlier in this blog when I say that a website that works and goes above and beyond the call of duty understands psychology, let me break it down like this. Dennis Rodman wasn’t the tallest defensive player out there, he was maybe 6’6.5”, or about a half-inch taller than his high-scoring teammate Michael Jordan. He was tall enough though, combined with his incredible wingspan, large hands, perfect metabolism, and the fact that he worked out 7 days a week for several hours every day…. all this meant was that he truly had a perfect physical body to be able to do what he did in the NBA.
He had all the physical attributes, and perhaps most importantly he had an endless amount of energy. “The guy never got tired,” is heard often when you listen to interviews about him from former NBA players that played with and against him.
What makes a website beautiful is that it does all the work mentioned previously on this blog, and at the same time it:
Makes a great first impression.
People who continually make great first impressions carry a certain energy or presence with them when you meet them. They are easy to understand and they appear to be fully present and get along with everyone.
Is appealing to the eye.
It should look sharp, completely put together, and easy on the eyes ?.
Is easy to understand.
When you see or experience how a website works you don’t get confused. Navigating yourself to the next page or to the information you’re looking for seems guided, and nurturing.
Expresses its personality.
A website that expresses the personality of a business is rare. Too often the website is dull and plain, and rarely do you see businesses go overboard with their branding. Showcasing your personality on your website helps to grow your brand’s presence in the market, inspire customers and make you more rememberable. Doing it the right way requires the right team on board.
A Tagline, Defined.
To recap, a website that works does its job, and also goes above and beyond the call of duty to do it great. A beautiful website makes a great first impression, is appealing to the eye and easy to understand when you see it work. A beautiful website that works grows your business and gives you peace of mind so you can focus on what matters most to you, your business and your life.
It helps you to be more present and enjoy more time with the people that matter most to you.
In the 8 years since we started Personable Media our role with our customers has evolved greatly. We are the Dennis Rodman in the background doing all the dirty work, keeping all your marketing efforts and businesses technical efficiency automations on track. It’s our mission to help you win the league scoring title, MVP and championship.
