Despite the heat this summer, the Certum Solutions team has heard so much about Pickleball, the court sport that is all the rage. That got me to thinking: Playing pickleball is similar to running an e-commerce business.

Stay with me on this one!

For the uninitiated, pickleball is a little like a smaller version of tennis mixed with a bigger version of ping pong. Two or four players with paddles volley a brightly colored wiffle ball across a badminton-sized court until they reach a score of 11, while at least two strokes ahead of the opposition.

Take a look at these five pickleball-inspired questions to create a clear vision for their business.

1.     Serving: What’s the Foundation of Your E-Commerce Business?

The foundation of gameplay in pickleball is serving the ball. A serve is how the game starts and how every rally for points begins. You want your serve to be strong. 

What strategy forms the foundation of your e-commerce business? A strong business strategy is crucial. Define your target audience, unique value proposition, and overall business goals. Create a strategic plan that outlines how you'll achieve these objectives. Every year, use your financial reporting to update your business strategy, goals, and plans.

2.              Rallying: How can you Create Momentum?

Just like tennis, the series of back-and-forth serves from one team to the other is called a rally. Ideally, you vex your opponent so they can’t return the ball—but honestly, I think it’s the most fun to see how many times the players can hit the ball in a row!

Creating momentum for your business often takes the form of marketing. There are a lot of options, free and paid, to create marketing momentum for an e-commerce business through social media, search ads, with influencers, through sales, via email registrations … the list goes on. Be intentional about which marketing tactics you use based on your industry, target customers, and business strategy. You don’t need to choose to market through every channel or platform; focus your energy on doing a couple of things well to create an effective “rally.”

3.              Committing a Fault: Where are your Missteps?

A foul, a penalty, a yellow card, a turnover … in pickleball, a fault ends play during a rally and results in the opposite team receiving the ball to serve. Maybe you missed returning a power shot or maybe you volleyed from the kitchen (a non-volley zone). Either way, your team messed up, so your turn is over.

If you’ve been running your e-commerce business for some time, it’s important to take the time to review your operations. A retrospective lets you examine what you’ve done well and what you could change to get better performance in the future. It gives you insight into your weakest points and the opportunity to fix them.

If you’re just getting started with your business, take a moment to analyze potential pitfalls. Procurement, manufacturing, inventory storage, shipping, web hosting, and work scheduling can all present thorny issues that it’s best to be prepared for.

4.              Dinking: What’s your Secret Advantage?

While it can feel good to send the ball whizzing over the net with a mighty power shot, sometimes dinking is the more unexpected and more sneakily prudent way to win a point. The delightfully named dink is a soft shot that arcs into your opponent’s no-volley zone, where the ball must bounce once before they can hit it back.

Masters of the dink have a secret advantage for winning points—and you should also have a competitive advantage. It might be a flagship product; your best-in-class design, sourcing, or manufacturing process; or your company’s values or mission. Whatever it is that you’ve built your business around and that you do best, make this your goal and stick to it, even as you evolve your offerings.

5.              Getting the 11th Point: What’s Your Goal?

Speaking of goals, pickleball players end the game when one team reaches 11 points, as long as they’re leading by at least two points. It’s a clear goal for all the players on the court.

It’s important for business owners to set goals so they know what they need to accomplish. Some goals may be out of necessity: How many sales do I need to make this month to cover overhead and payroll? Others may be aspirational or directional: What’s the long-term vision for growth?

No matter what type of goal you’re setting, be sure to follow the principles of SMART goals to make them more achievable:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time-bound

Certum Solutions, Your Doubles Partner

You’re not on the pickleball court by yourself! If you’re not sure about your business’s answers to the strategic questions above, Certum Solutions would love to help.

And we can do more than help your e-commerce business with bookkeeping and accounting solutions—we’re pros at helping you host and optimize your website for sales, too. We’d love to talk to you about the right QuickBooks software, and whether an integration with Shopify is the right strategy for your business. Book a free consultation to chat with our team to volley all your questions our way. Get the support you might need from Certum Solutions, your future doubles partner!