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What Football and Optical Have in Common

Gary Kaschak

My fascination with correlating numbers with sports led to a short but educational stint as a part-time statistician with the Washington Federals of the now defunct United States Football League (USFL). It was during that 1983 season that I connected using the concepts of calculating team statistics with those of an optical store. At that time, my fulltime position was managing a busy downtown Sterling Optical location.

My job as statistician was to delve inside the numbers produced by the individual statistics of the game and analyze the data for review by the coaching staff.

What I learned that season about statistics and the language of numbers truly broadened my way of thinking when it pertained to analyzing the individual sales of those on my optical team. Lens options were limited in 1983, but the process of tracking individual sales had grown as I persevered to understand and analyze the incredible language of numbers.

Sterling brass had recently introduced two new “designer” lines—Paul Michel and Portofino—and made it clear to us to “lead” with these frames on all sales. I began to track the sales of those two lines to determine who was selling the most (by percentage of sales).

We tracked the individual sales of these two frame lines for a two-month period before we decided to share the information with staff. Once the numbers were posted and the top sellers lauded, the sales of the two frame lines went through the roof.

What I discovered was this: People wanted to be recognized for their successes, they enjoyed the instore contests that we introduced, and it became fun for them as they battled cooperatively with other staff members. On the other hand, we discovered that nobody wanted to be at or near the bottom of the rankings, and that these bottom-dwellers soon became discouraged with the outcomes.

WHAT WE DID

We held a staff meeting where I went over this subject, letting my staff know that someone had to be at the top, and someone had to be at the bottom. Our goal was not to embarrass anyone, but to pull the team together and to shorten the gap between the top and bottom.

To encourage everyone, we started recognizing our most improved. But what happened over the next two months was this: Every single member on that team showed dramatic improvement over their previous two months of work. Why?

■ It was important to me that these frames were sold, and they respected me.

■ The way we presented and tracked was fun and rewarding.

■ They enjoyed being recognized for their efforts.

That year, our location became one of the top three stores in the country. EB

Gary Kaschak has spent 35 years with Sterling Optical and has written three novels.