Today is probably one of the least efficient days in American business.  Millions of people, most of which have not watched very much college basketball this season are filling out their brackets for the big tournament.  I filled out three brackets in a grand total of seven minutes and 28 seconds.  I could do hours of research and think that I am now an expert, but the experts usually get it wrong anyway.

Here are some of my picks, if you need advice:

Villanova over George Mason – a whole team against one guy? 

Washington over Georgia – a husky can outrun a bulldog any day!

Butler over Old Dominion – just so we can hear them say, “The Butler did it”.

BYU over Wofford – if I don’t know where the school is, how can I pick them?

OK, it’s pretty obvious that I have a bad system for picking college basketball games.  But, the experts, who spend days analyzing the teams, statistics, game location, etc., often do worse than the person who makes their choice based on uniform color.  When it comes to you community or business, make sure you don’t blindly follow the “experts”.   Take their advice and apply it to what you are seeing every day.  There will be nuggets that you see will help you, but there are unique circumstances with your community that override general expertise.

What it comes down to is knowing your business better than anyone.  Take the time to know where you are getting your leads and calls.  Have your staff trained to record this data into some type of tracking system, than make sure to calculate your return on investment.

Now, after you finish your bracket, go out there and make sure you are the EXPERT on your community or business!