Friendly environments such as Starbuck’s provide a friendly environment requiring little commitment being a much smaller price tag of a restaurant. The incentive of meeting at a coffee shop? There are less chances of uncomfortable moments battlling spaghetti noodles or dripping soup off your chin. A friendly place where one can easily make a sales meeting a long beneficial meeting or a few short one because there was really no interest in it for the customer.

Tips to Help You Prepare for You Sales Meetings:

• Define your goals and objectives.
• Ask your prospect or customer to provide a time frame so you know in advance how much time you have and prioritize. We should all respect the time of others and nothing is worse than being cut off right before the best part of the presentation.
• Get some sleep so you are sharp and add subtle color to your wardrobe so that you are at your best and interesting.
• Be personable and do not appear hungry for the sale. Good things will come to those who are prepared.
• Be able to answer their ”What is in it for me question” with the 5 to  10 minutes.
• Bring examples of how your product or service works for a client of yours. Talk about facts and figures of how well it worked for them and what you personally did to make the transition a success.
• Stay well informed about your competitors. Be informed about their latest financial news, public R&D projects and news about new product introductions.
• Don’t give away the farm. Provide an incentive to your prospect so that you can meet again or communicate by phone. Leave only a few brochures with them so that you and not your brochure is closing the sale.
• Bring only current marketing material. I can’t tell you how many times I have sat across from people and realized that their materials were very dated.
• Use concise laptop presentations whenever possible, we are all still captivated by the Internet and all it’s power.
• Ask your prospect what they liked most about the presentation. Also, ask if they have met with another company and what they liked and did not like about their products or service.
• Encourage interest and excitement by sincerely be interested in your prospect.
• Don’t forget to sprinkle humor in your sales meeting and lighten things up.
• Stimulate and develop interest by asking open questions. 
• Always be closing but be careful not to make it too obvious

Follow Up:

A call cannot be considered a follow up call until, you make contact!

Send a thank you email or good old fashioned card with only a thank you in mind for their time. This sincere act will immediately set you apart and will be appreciated.

When you make contact, ask if they have had the time to research more or revisit brochures from your meeting together. If they have, be sure to warmly compliment them. Provide them with what you understood are the company’s needs. If they have not researched or revisited brochures, ask if they would appreciate highlights sent to them on an email. Sending a follow up email will allow you to promote yourself and your product in a more direct fashion. 

Offer to assist your prospect if they are needing help sell the idea or service to other decision makers.  

Host an Open House at your company or if possible, conduct a virtual meeting with other key members from Customer Service, Support and Implementation. Doing so will instill trust and provide additonal confidence about sharing their interests with others in their company.  

Keep things upbeat, be confident that what you are selling will impact their company and future profits.

Develop a relationship not just a sale. Good sales people remember that each individual sold or not is very important. They follow the Other People’s People (OPP) rule. The prospect’s people are your future sales and each contact with a prospect is actually selling to other people through your prospect.

Good selling starts with an incentive to do the right thing, the right way for a positive result!

People use coupons and are feeling more appreciated because they are being offered an opportunity to enjoy living life as they did  before this economic slow down. They are actively hunting for coupons and incentives to see movies, plays, concerts and make purchases at stores.

When the happy recipient uses their coupon,  they are sharing it with everyone! This is why more and more retailers and restaurants are jumping in on the band wagon. They offer a discount but gain from supplemental purchases and the best advertising of all, word of mouth advertising. We all like to brag a bit about a great deal found or gift incentive we have received.

Over the past two or three years at Incentive and Rewards conventions, the choice of delivery for incentive coupons codes are via SMS Text Messaging.  Coupon incentives are received quickly, attractively and are usually used more immediatley than the traditional mailer.  Using electronics is a part of our busy lives and there is still is a certain excitement to it all. 

Companies can buy movie and restaurant codes in bulk for delicious savings,  extending coupon incentives with more employees and donors. Ah, the love of an incentive providing food and entertanment!

Summer is the time to reach out to others and join forces stretching your marketing dollars through collaborative projects. Organizations like the Boy or Girl Scouts are wonderful for a Community Project Day and blood donation drives. Donors can immediately see the benefits of a cleaned up park or beach while being reminded by t-shirts worn by blood donor recipients who participated in the day’s events that blood donations are crucial to saving someone’s life. An organization can really find many non-competive partners that compliment each other while getting the word out. These partnerships also provided an added interest for advertisers donating their time or space attracting donors who hold mulitiple charities close to their heart. 

Seek out Incentive Brokers who understand your donors and know how to answer their “What’s in it for me” question. An incentive is not an incentive if it is the wrong one, at the wrong price. The newest incentives combine benefits and rewards for the entire family at a deep discount that only Incentive Brokers can provide. An organization should also incentivize their marketing staff, telemarketers and blood donor appointment setters with a program that provides prescription discounts, fitness, doctors online, theme parks, nationwide golf and travel to enhance their medical benefits at a fraction of the cost. Each program offers a selection of 70 different benefits and incentives to choose from to create your own customized donor incentive program.

Make it as fun for your employees as it is for your donors with energetic Fun Fridays, BBQ’s, Bring Your Dog to Work Day, staff meetings in the sun and contests. Don’t forget to share your  amped up energy on your website with beach scenes and summer themed games for the entire family. Games that are fun for the entire family will help you develop an interest in your organization for the next generation and many summers of giving ahead. Dedicate a section or entire page to helpful summer time menus, tips, community events and lots of pictures of donor fun.

Reach donors at the beach, park or in the parking lot with SMS text messages containing coupon codes for movies, restaurants and more! Thrill your young donors by delivering incentives in modern unique ways using technology and create delivery. Send popcorn by mail and ask them to make an appointment receiving a movie ticket for their donation.

This summer get those creative juices going so you too can have a more carefree vacation.

Taxes deductions and t-shirts are terrific but what about a reward that gives back to them over and over again?  Incentives geared toward levels of commitment and motivating one level to move to a higher level. To find the perfect incentive program require some homework regardng the culture of your organization and type of donor. Annual surveys help to determine the reward that your donors are looking for and the use of an Incentives Broker.  An effective survey is one that includes the following:

• How many potential donors are in the household?
• What is their reason for giving?
• What other charities are of interest to them?
• What types of physical activities does the family enjoy on the weekends?
• What is their favorite entertainment venue?
• Favorite food?
• Would they donate more often if they could select their own incentive?
• Are they interested in providing a testimonial?
• Would they be interested in donating their time calling others to donate?

One California Incentive Broker believes that their choice, is their motivation when it comes to incentive programs. When donors hear that they can select their incentive that includes their family,  they are immediately driven to donate more reguarly and usually tell a friend.

Once you begin to design your donor incentive program, don’t forget your Blood Donor Schedulers, Call Center Representatives and Marketing Staff who create donor drives.  Employees can select from over 70 Total Benefits & Incentives to Choose From to Create Your Own Customized Discounts.  Health Provider Discounts include Aetna Dental, Lab & Imaging, Vision, Fitness, Tele-Doc, Medical Equipment and more.  Their family will love the discounts to nationwide restaurants, golf courses, hotels, legal services and theme parks, plus additional services and fun!

We do what we do every day because we are motivated forone reason or another to do so. We go to work to pay for our homes and go on vacations. We brush are teeth to keep them healthy for life. If we find answer to their “What’s in it for me” question, our donors will help us motivate others sharing their incentive experience increasing the number of those who give.

Giving reaches all of us on a deep level and provides us with a warm satisfying feeling about being a true Humanitarian. For other donors, they sincerely want to give and also receive that T-Shirt that they can proudly wear on the weekends. The T-shirt lets everyone know that they gave blood to help others. Each donor has their own incentive for giving it could be to help others and receive a tax deduction, community ackowledgement or cash incentive for that college student for a pint.

Keys Steps for Donations

• First of all you must know the type of donor for the campaign. Is it a combination of donor or one type of donor?
• What can you do to answer their “What’s in it for me” question that is new and different?
• Can you tie an incentive that benefits the entire family to the donation? 
• Plainly educate your donor on the need, the process, provide them trust and testimonials.
• Communicate personal fulfillment.
• Foster a long standing commitment and recruit donors so that are actively involved in your next campaign.
• Survey your donors regarding the overall experience

What about the family, did you know that giving can be a generational commitment? If grandpa and grandma gave to the Red Cross or to the Girl Scouts, the chances are that the grandchildren will too. Why not use an incentive that motivates the entire family investing in the future of your organization. If the younger generations  understand that charitable donations are not only important as good Humanitarians,  it can also provide them with an incentive to give,  your organization will benefit for years to come.

Consider the Benefits and Lifestyle Discount Incentive

Your employees and donors can access, utilize discounts to supplement their other core insurance benefits along with enjoying the fun entertainment discounts. An incentive for the entire family!

• 22 Health Provider Discounts for Aetna Dental, Lab & Imaging, Vision, Fitness, Tele-Doc, Medical Equipment and More.
•  20 different discounts to 20,000 Restaurants Nationwide, 2,000 Golf Courses, Hotels, Legal services and Theme Parks, plus with Additional Services and Fun.  
• Over 70 Total Benefits & Incentives to Choose From to Create Your Own Customized Discounts.

With some many organizations in need and natural disasters around the world, what increases donor participation is their choice of incentive.

To begin let’s reasses ourselves and our approach. It is not the climate that we experienced last year nor unfortunately,  the climate of 2005 when everyone was enjoying positive equity and businesses were in living in Fat City.  Below are a few steps to consider:

1. Manage Your Profile and Image - What message and image do you now want to portray? 
2. Socialize Yourself and Network Again - Use the new one page business card that places all social networks you are in on one convenient electronic card.  Visit www.myonepage.com 
3. Join in One Discussions – Join other charitable organizations with an incentive to help others increase donations.
4. Add your Events to the Calendars of Others – Promote your upcoming seminars and events motivating donor attendance.
5. Downloadable Content & Blogs – Promote downloading of white papers, inspirational stories, studies, and be sure to blog several times a week to keep your charity out there.  
6. Use Incentives – Whatever your budget, there is an incentive for you. Whether it be for a donation, participation in a charity event or referral say thank you frequently and often.
7. Make Every Single Contact a Sincere and Personal One – Reach out to all those from the past taking interest in their lives and simply say hello. In this sell sell sell world, you will be a breath of fresh air and remembered for it.

The feel good feeling is contagious. If we give as God intended there is no other joy than helping others. Open up your heart and you will find that others will want to join you.

www.strategicconcepts-ca.com

This article has been excerpted from The Power of Loyalty by Roger L. Brooks available from Entrepreneur Press. 

The best way to motivate customer behavior is to provide an incentive or reward for that motivation. Rewarding your customers for a specific purchasing  behavior s not much different than training your puppy. With enough repetition and positive reinforcement, your pup can be motivated to act upon instruction. That’s because the pup knows if he listens to your command, he’ll receive his reward.

Human nature isn’t much different. People can be motivated to take specific actions that accomplish their buying goals while also accomplishing your goals to increase their spending, frequency of visits or combination purchases (or comparative goals relevant to your line of business).

The question then is how do you motivate behavior? Below are five ideas that will get you thinking.

1. Offer soft benefits that provide value such as special access limited only to members.
2. Offer relevant promotions through various lines of communication, for example: e-mail, SMS text, receipt messages, statement inserts, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
3. Up-sell complimentary products or services at the associate level.
4. Offer sweepstakes, random rewards or special offers for a limited time frame, keep your strategy fresh and exciting:
5. Strategically place messages (via signage, web banners, etc.) that will trigger motivating actions.

Motivate, But Don’t Mislead
Once you decide how you’ll motivate, always do so in an honorable way. Your customers won’t want to be misled into thinking they are receiving something greater in value that what they’ll actually receive as the reward.

Abraham Lincoln put it best when he said, “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

Of course, the statement was made some 150 years ago and the President was referring to politicians attempting to fool their constituents; however, the quote resonates with me every time I see a program that offers empty loyalty. Such programs offer an elaborate program on the outside when, indeed, it’s only a facade to increase business. In time, savvy customers will see through the facade. Your promotional strategy to motivate behavior must be phony proof. Once your customers lift the hood and kick the tires, the promotions must stand on their own and offer real value, not empty promises.

Remember, whatever you do, don’t try to fool the customer! Loyal customers will catch on if the loyalty program does not have true value. This can also backfire and cause disloyalty amongst your customers and defeat the entire purpose of implementing your strategy in the first place.

There are two reasons why your rewards offerings should be upstanding:

1. Loyal customers have earned the right to receive a valid reward. If they weren’t enrolled in your program, they may have taken their business elsewhere.
2. Customers can see through transparent rewards.

If you want to be in the loyalty game, you have to offer attractive redemption items that are achievable for your customers to earn. If customers are willing to change their purchasing behavior and provide you with their loyalty, they will expect the same in return from you in the form of a relevant reward.

It’s the Little Things That Matter Most
If you put on your consumer hat, you’ll understand that it’s the little things that matter most. One component you should incorporate is providing feel-good loyalty. Feel-good loyalty is just what it sounds like, providing something that the customer will feel good about. Offering feel-good-loyalty incentives should be part of your overall strategy and will require some clever and creative thinking. Some companies offer free Wi-Fi, others offer free shipping. Whatever you decide, brainstorm hard, even hold an employee contest. but find your niche and add feel-good loyalty to the mix.

Photofiddle.com is an Internet company that offers a service to turn your photographs into art. Simply upload a photo and you can instantly transform that image into pop art, impasto, a black and white sketch and even more. Once you create your personal masterpiece you then have many options for the type of surface the image is printed on (glossy photo paper, canvas, etc.). Finally, you can choose from a number of print sizes and framing choices.

Although Photofiddle doesn’t have a recognizable rewards program they do provide various levels of feel-good loyalty. Upon opening your order, customers see each piece is carefully packaged and accompanied with a pair of white cotton gloves. The label attached to the gloves reads, “All fine artwork should be handled with care. Please use white cotton gloves. Oils from your hands and fingers can leave finger prints. Jewelry on your fingers and wrist can leave markings.”

That’s a personal touch and that’s feel-good-loyalty. It’s doing the little things that matter most with customers. It’s thinking outside the box so that your brand motivates your customers and resonates in their mind. Providing the white cotton gloves with each order sends both a literal message and subliminal message. It reinforces the need to treat your artwork with care and that they treat all of their customers with care.

During your last visit at Macy’s did you notice how you are either greeted or thanked for your business by using your name? It probably made you stop for a second and pay attention to their comments. Facebook has become one of the greatest forms of communication around the world because people want to be connected yet in a quick and concise manner.  People want to stay connected and informed. They make quick decisions about whether to continue reading letters or emails throughout their busy days.  The recipient reads every word and sentence, each is at a point of judgement to deciphers the communication’s value before it ends up in the trash can.

Have you been trying to effectively reach your audience, giving them an incentive to take action using the following:

• Relevancy: Is your email or phone call relevant to the individual? Or, are you  just trying to cast the net and be happy with the few you reach?
• Significance: Is there quick indentifable value and incentive to the recipient? Would you take advantage of this offer or information, as a Salesperson or consumer yourself?
• Honesty: Are you being honest about why your are making contact and the statements within it?
• Helpfulness: Are you providing helpful or educational information? Is this information making a positive impact?
• Simplicity: Is your communication easy to understand? Are details about your services or condition of a discount buried in “gotcha” phrases that only an attorney could understand?

Next time you reach out, be personal making sure you answer their “What’s in it for me” question and capture the opportunity.

Most of us have a good inkling as to what our true passions are — what we would do for free or what we would even pay someone else to let us do. In fact, most of us share our passions for free, either as a hobby or through volunteering. Heck, some of us pay a lot of money to access our passions.

The Passion Conundrum: What’s between you and doing what you love fully and vibrantly?

If you’re like me, you’re probably telling yourself one of these stories: “I’m too busy.” “I don’t have enough money.” “I’m not talented enough.” You’ve probably got lots of “yeah buts” for why you cannot thrive at what you love, based upon your past experiences and ultimately upon F.E.A.R. It’s funny how we take our past, project it into our future and then believe that it’s the truth of who we are. “Fear is always the result of an unquestioned past imagined as a future.” She also describes, in a 2009 Twitter tweet: “Fear has only two causes: the thought of losing what you have or the thought of not getting what you want.”

So what’s the fear about? Fears of failure, looking bad, not looking good, not being accepted, and the fear of being homeless are just a few that I hear and have personally experienced. The bottom line? Your fears do not define who you are and they are a lousy story with an unhappy ending that you continually tell yourself, over and over again. What a recurring nightmare!

In my own life, I sold out my passions several times to follow the path most traveled and headed into the illusory security of Corporate America. Let’s flash back to my undergrad years, when I absolutely adored the French language and dreamed of becoming a language professor. Most of my friends, meanwhile, were heading into law, medicine, or business. When I solicited their opinion on my French passion as a career, I heard loudly and clearly “Teachers don’t make any money!” I believed them. I also believed that, especially as a woman, I should be more practical/realistic/logical/level-headed. Sadly enough, by choosing to become a businesswoman (which I liked) rather than a professor of French (which I adored), I affirmed the fallacy that teachers can’t prosper in their passions and that I couldn’t either. At the time, I reasoned that, if I was on the right path in pursuing my passions, I should be fear-less. WRONG! Now I know that true courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway, whatever “it” is.

For The Passions and Possibilities Project®, we have interviewed over 200 individuals who have leaped fully and vibrantly into their passions for making big differences in the world (aka Passioneers®). Every single one of them stated that they had fears during their leaps, and that they moved forward anyway. You had better believe that fears were rampant when the following four successful Passioneers made the tough decision to fully unleash their passions:

* Ellen Whitehurst leaves a successful corporate career and 20-year marriage to become a feng shui expert. She later rockets to the status of Dr. Oz advisor and an author whose books, blogs, and articles are read by millions.

* Brooke Ellison enters the gates of Harvard on her first day of classes. She then becomes the first quadriplegic to graduate from Harvard and inspires Christopher Reeve to create a motion picture about her life’s story.

* Dr. Joanna Dolgoff gives up a thriving pediatric practice to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity, an issue that very few doctors address. She’s now one of the leading experts in the world.

* Missy Lavender decides that women’s pelvic health is more important than a lucrative real estate investment career. She co-founds the Women’s Health Foundation, and gets interviewed by Whoopie Goldberg on the popular ABC TV program, The View.

Thank God that I now realize the creative power of our words and actions. The Passions and Possibilities Project is my way to prove to myself and others that, when we do what we love, the rest DOES follow. One of my mentors recently reminded me that, the bigger the game that you play in the world, the bigger your fears will be. With my most recent leap into founding The Passions and Possibilities Project, I can honestly say that this is true: there are days when I am terrified. Below are three simple steps that I use and recommend to my coaching clients when the hairy scary monsters raise their ugly heads:

1. Feel the Fear. Don’t run, hide, abdicate, medicate, or give up. Action Step: Write down at least ten “facts” about your situation and then compare them to the “story” that you have been telling yourself. Now that you can see the difference between fact and fiction, which would you really prefer?

2. Move Forward Anyway. Miracles arise when you step out of your comfort zone and into your dreams. Even by taking a baby step forward, you will find wings starting to sprout where dug-in heels used to be. Action Step: Take at least three baby steps forward into your passions and see what happens.

3. Build a Courage Club. It is true that you are whom you hang out with. So, if you’ve been hanging out with passion wimps, it is high time to choose again. Action Step: Call, write, visit, or bump into at least three people this week who are passion warriors, even if you don’t know them. When two or more Passioneers are gathered, magic happens…a lot!

Best wishes on your courageous journey and Happy Passioneering.

The future football great was born June 11, 1913, to Harry and Matilda Lombardi in Brooklyn, N.Y. His mother came from an Italian family of 13 children. His father, an immigrant butcher in New York, made a hard living with his hands. As such, the elder Lombardi had the words W-O-R-K and P-L-A-Y tattooed on his knuckles.

Both Lombardi’s parents were disciplinarians—his father would “hit you as soon as talk to you” and his mother “would hit first and ask questions later,” David Maraniss writes in When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. Harry Lombardi preached his triangle of success to his children—sense of duty, respect for authority and strong mental discipline. Harry and Matilda Lombardi expected much of their three sons and two daughters, but none bore more responsibility than their firstborn son, Vincent.

After playing high school football, Lombardi accepted a scholarship in fall 1933 to play at Fordham University, a Jesuit-philosophy all-boys Catholic school in New York. You’ve heard stories of ruler-wielding nuns and no-nonsense priests, and the Jesuits’ strict discipline was no different. Lombardi viewed having respect for authority as one of the highest disciplines. “A disciplined person is one who follows the will of the one who gives the orders,” Lombardi once said.

Lombardi Rule: Respect legitimate authority. “If you’re going to exercise authority, you’ve got to respect it.”

Lombardi gritted, clawed and ached his way to a starting position at Fordham, later to become one of the famed “Seven Blocks of Granite,” a nickname for the team’s offensive line coined by fedora-wearing sports writers of the day. This earned the respect of his teammates, who say Lombardi seemed mature beyond his years, “carrying himself on campus like a young salesman moving briskly on his way to the next call. His shirts and suits were sharply pressed. He toted a snappy brown briefcase with neatly organized class notes and football diagrams,” Maraniss writes.

His playing years at Fordham were formative, with the Jesuit philosophy firmly placed in the holy trinity of Lombardi’s constitution: God, football and family. Jesuits believe perfection comes to those who work hardest for it, and Lombardi was a disciple of that ideology.

Lombardi Rule: Don’t just work harder than the next guy. Work harder than everybody else.

After Lombardi graduated Fordham, he actually struggled to find his calling. His teammates figured he’d enter the business world—on account of those sharply pressed suits he wore—but Lombardi wasn’t much of a businessman. He had no desire to go back into the family business with the man who bore “work” and “play” on his knuckles. The future football legend lacked the talent to make a full-time living playing professional football; he played instead for the second-rung American Professional Football League’s Brooklyn Eagles. So, Lombardi began his career teaching high school physics, chemistry and Latin, while coaching football and basketball.

Several years later, he returned to Fordham as an assistant football coach. “Lombardi was in his element. Football as religion. The T (defense) as catechism from which he preached. And God was in the details,” Maraniss writes in When Pride Still Mattered.

On the field, he developed a reputation for being a tireless coach, conducting grueling training camps and demanding absolute dedication from his players. And it took every ounce of his players’ allegiance to endure Lombardi’s taxing practice sessions. Lombardi himself was so committed that he’d run the same play continually, barking out “Run it again!” anytime there was a mistake. Lombardi expected perfection, or as close as any flawed human could achieve.

Lombardi Rule: Chase perfection. “If you settle for nothing less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your life.”

Lombardi coached college football for six years at Fordham as well as the U.S. Military Academy at West Point until he received an invitation to the big leagues—working as assistant coach for the New York Giants. He was part of a holy trinity of football—Jim Lee Howell as head coach, Lombardi as offensive coach, and a young coach fresh from Texas named Tom Landry as defensive coach. His hard-edged style was a contrast to Landry’s soft-spoken approach, but effective nonetheless. Landry would go on to coach Green Bay’s biggest rival, the Dallas Cowboys.

Lombardi worked longer and harder than anyone to earn a head coaching position in the NFL. He was 45 and never a head coach—professional, college, high school or otherwise. He longed for that role—to be the one in charge. He later wrote in a November 1968 article for Boys’ Life magazine, “those were 13 very long years, especially for a fellow with a naturally explosive temper and a seething impatience.”

His opportunity came in 1959, when he left the Giants and moved west to Green Bay, a place he once described as God-forsaken. With his leather briefcase of football diagrams, he packed up his wife, Marie, and children, Vincent Jr. and Susan, and entered the era of his greatest purpose, as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

In his nine seasons coaching the Packers, Lombardi made men of his players. In doing this, he promised to be relentless. “With every fiber of my body, I’ve got to make you the best football player that I can make you,” Lombardi told his players. “And you’ve got to give everything that is in you. You’ve got to keep yourself in prime physical condition, because fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

He instituted West Point time, later known as Lombardi time, which meant 10 minutes early. As such, player curfews were strictly enforced while on the road. He fined players who came in minutes late. He wanted his players to represent the team well, so players had to wear team blazers and ties while traveling.

Lombardi believed a person’s character is made up of small, everyday decisions to do the right thing, as well as larger prevailing traits, such as respect, humility and responsibility. “Character is just another word for having a perfectly disciplined and educated will,” Lombardi told management students at Fordham in 1967. “A person can make his own character by blending these elements with an intense desire to achieve excellence. Everyone is different in what I will call magnitude, but the capacity to achieve character is still the same.”

He continued with a chuckle, “I sound like a real philosopher but I’m not. This is what I believe in.”

Lombardi Rule: Write your character. “Improvements in moral character are our own responsibility. Bad habits are eliminated not by others, but by ourselves.”

By developing his players’ character, teaching them discipline and giving them self-confidence to achieve more than they thought possible, he brought five NFL championships to Green Bay in nine seasons. While other coaches knew more about the “x’s” and “o’s” of the game, no one knew his players’ psychology better than Lombardi. He developed people, not players.

The coach retired from Green Bay, briefly, before joining the Washington Redskins. But by this time, Lombardi was not up to the challenge. Shuffling in and out of the hospital, Lombardi was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Lombardi died in 1970 at age 57, 10 weeks after diagnosis. Fans flocked to his funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. He was survived by his parents, his wife and children, and of course, his status as a legend.

His son says his father’s legacy is of leadership, not necessarily football, “because it wasn’t what he accomplished but how he accomplished it.” He did it with honesty, integrity, heart, dedication, and most important, unconditional love for the game of football.

It was the great coach’s religion—where Catholicism left off, football began.