Wanna Streak?

Got your attention? Good. Middle of March and it’s that wonderful time of the year when corporate America will lose $2B of productivity because everyone is filling out their NCAA brackets in hopes of winning the office pool for bragging rights and happy hour money.

Or if you work for Berkshire Hathaway, the research has shifted away from investment strategies to who will be the upset in the 5-12 seed, since Warren Buffett has promised a cool $1M to the person who picks the perfect first round. (By the way – odds are about 1 in 4 billion – your luck is better with a single lottery ticket. Seriously.) In case you are wondering, picking an entirely perfect bracket – all 67 games – 1 in 128 billion.

So, while the focus inevitably is on the cash machine that is the Men’s NCAA March Madness Tournament, I would like to share a story about a little winning streak that is currently active on the Women’s side of things. The University of Connecticut Women’s Basketball team enters this tournament with 107 consecutive wins. The last time they lost a basketball game was November 17th, 2014. Yes a long time ago.

Anyone who has played any level of competitive sports, especially team sports, knows the challenge of a winning streak. Heck, just doing something on a personal level 107 times in a row – and doing it the right way – is a challenge. (Did you floss today?)

Now time for some facts about this impressive streak, and then more importantly: why all the fuss about it?

• 104 wins have been my more than ten points. If you’re counting, that means only 3 wins were less than ten points.
• 60 victories by at least 40 points. Not just winning – dominating!
• 41 consecutive road victories. Does not matter where they play – they are going to win.
• 20 more wins than Men’s record. Legendary John Wooden’s UCLA teams won 88 games in a row.

What does all this mean? You mean besides 2 national titles during this streak? And the 4 National titles in the row, 11 total for the school? A built-in competitive advantage – that’s what it gets you! That amount of sustained excellence has been proven to give the UCONN Women’s basketball team at least 8-10 points when our friends in Vegas set the line for the game. The name of the front of their jersey does mean something.

Translate that into what it takes to give your brand a built in competitive advantage – every time, all the time, and you will know where to put your money. I know where I am putting mine.