As most sports fans will be aware the new football season has recently kicked off, with all the teams challenging to be the very best. You may wonder why we are talking about football on a refrigeration engineering page. But believe it or not, EJM and the game of football have many similarities…
What on earth has football to do with EJM?
You would think not a lot, however as we’ve said similarities can be compared between us and a football team – and we have one team in mind, Newcastle Benfield Football Club. We are very proud to be one of the sponsors for this local team and support the club. So, looking at both them and us, what things could we possibly have in common? How can we compare?
Both of us have a good history.
As two totally different industries, we both have a good track record of being around for quite a while. Both Newcastle Benfield Football Club and EJM started back in the 1980s, and we are the older of the two! Longevity in engineering and even local sports is fairly rare, there are so many variables that can change things, from financial to personnel changes. We are both glad to still be around!
The bottom line is we are both businesses.
You may not think of a local football club as a business, but it very much is. They still have to do have accounts, pay for all their outgoings including the ground, upkeep, and of course transporting the players where they need to be. Just like us, a business needs a lot of time and reliable managers and staff. Only by treating each aspect of the business with the respect it deserves can it thrive.
Everyone has a part to play.
In both sectors, engineering and sports, everybody has a role. At Newcastle Benfield Football Club, it’s not just the players that make the team, it’s all the backroom staff as well. The same goes for us, it’s not just our engineers that keep everything running smoothly, it’s all our other staff as well. It’s like a large jigsaw, everybody fits somewhere, and when a team works together, they can achieve great things.
Always striving to be better.
It’s great when you get a run of wins and that includes sports and engineering. Good results for a football club and satisfied customers for an engineering company. Once we have that, do we sit on our backsides and do the same thing? No, we don’t, we always try and aim that little bit higher, that little bit better.
The old cliché is “it’s a new and improved formula”, (think of washing powder), and we like to try and improve our service and the football team their results.
Being proud of what we’ve achieved.
Having an achievement is something to be proud of, and in both sports and engineering, there are accolades where all the hard work, teamwork and planning can pay off. Like some games for Newcastle Benfield Football Club, we’ve been the underdog against competitors, but we have got the result we wanted. It’s the small wins that make us proud and feel an achievement has been made. We might not have a trophy cabinet, but we do have accreditations!
Recognising that the building needs to continue.
What do we mean by this? Well if you have a winning formula, such as a crack team of sportspeople or engineers do you need to do anything else? The answer is yes, always look after your staff, or players and help them improve. After all, we are only human, we can get injured or be sick so we always need a backup plan to provide the very best we can.
Realising that great achievements take time.
If you think about it in a basic term, we are much like Newcastle Benfield Football Club in that we also have opponents. Our opponents are, of course, our competitors – other engineering companies that are trying to win contracts for their business. These achievements can take time and in both of our sectors, it is only this time and dedication that can reap rewards. It is very rare for a new company or football team to win everything straightaway!
Having a sense of satisfaction.
Being pleased with your work and having satisfaction is a massive buzz! It may seem strange but when a refrigeration plant is completed and the customer is very happy, it gives us great satisfaction, knowing we have done what we set out to do. Football is exactly the same, you don’t go into a game to come second! If you win it is very satisfying, realising all the hard work has paid off.
So, you can see we can compare ourselves to the team we are sponsoring, albeit on a different level we both have so much we are proud of and more that we want to achieve.
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