Joe Moglia outlined a focused strategy for business success as the keynote speaker at the Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship. Screenshot from Nebraska Entrepreneur on Vimeo.
In seemingly every arena that he’s competed, Joe Moglia has been a winner.
Now the chairman of the board at TD Ameritrade and president and coach for the Omaha Nighthawks, Moglia carries a résumé that includes both Ivy League football championships as an assistant at Dartmouth — the Big Green was one of several teams he coached in his first 16-year stint in football — and the turnaround of a Fortune 500 company at Ameritrade — he served as CEO from 2001-08, helping bring the online brokerage firm back from the brink of collapse.
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As Moglia tells it, the recipe that’s helped him win in business and sport is one that focuses intently on a few basic principles. He shared those as the closing keynote speaker at last month’s Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship, emphasizing the principles’ usefulness for companies at all stages of growth.
“Hopefully,” Moglia told the crowd of entrepreneurs, “you see some parallels between Ameritrade — a $12 billion company today — and the (United Football League) and what you do in your particular area.”
Moglia emphasized three groups that a successful business must consider in all decisions: clients, shareholders and employees.
“Most decisions you make are about people – it’s the people you surround yourself with, it’s the people you make decisions about, it’s the responsibility you give them,” Moglia said. “At the end of the day, it’s those people and those associates that deliver the value to either (your clients or shareholders).”
Moglia also outlined a three-step process for turning a business’ strengths into profits. First, a business must determine its core competencies. Second, it must determine how to leverage those core competencies into competitive advantages. Third, the company must determine what market niches are the best fit for it and become a leader in that niche.
“Most decisions you make are about people – it’s the people you surround yourself with, it’s the people you make decisions about, it’s the responsibility you give them.”
Upon his arrival at Ameritrade, Moglia filtered out all ideas and discussions that didn’t fit into that three-step process. It worked. Between the time Moglia arrived at Ameritrade and today, the company’s client assets have grown from $24 billion to $400 billion, and Ameritrade has been the world leader in online equity transactions seven of the last 10 years.
“I don’t care where you are in your business,” Moglia said, “those principles hold true, no matter what phase of your business you’re in.”
Moglia’s hoping to engineer an Ameritrade-esque turnaround with the Nighthawks, a franchise that has experienced some financial hardship recently. And come what may, he said, the leader of a winning business must take accountability even for losses.
“Because you’re the leader of the organization, you can’t say that’s somebody else’s fault,” Moglia said. “It’s now your fault. It may not have been your responsibility, you may not have been the reason why it got a little screwed up, but it is now your responsibility.”
For Moglia’s complete talk, including the question and answer session that followed, check the video below.
