Road Atlanta is a famous roadracing track 800 miles from Tulsa, Oklahoma, a grueling trip to make in the back seat of a 1972 BMW 2002.

Tony and Indy ride in the front seats. Pennie and I ride in the back.

We stop only for gas.

Arriving in pre-dawn Atlanta, we get a few hours sleep, then go down to the track where 67 racecars are parked in the dim sunlight of a misty morning.

We are invited to examine all 67 of the racecars. At the end of 40 minutes, Tony points to car number 52, a 1978 Buick Skyhawk. He says,

“Unless the driver sticks it into the wall or the engine explodes, that’s the car that will win.”

I looked at number 52, then glanced around at all the other cars and said, “Why?”

Tony said,

“That’s a ten-thousand-dollar paint job, and paint jobs don’t win races.”

“You’re telling me that the owner is an idiot. So why do you think his car will win?”

Tony slowly shook his head, then said,

“The fact that he spent $10,000 on a paint job lets me know that he spared no expense doing everything that matters. This guy did hundreds of important things to this car before he gave a single thought to the paint job. This paint job was the very last thing he did.”

When I understood what Tony was saying, I repeated it back to him. “The fact that he has spent a ton of money to repaint a brand-new car that was already beautiful means that he has already done everything else that could help him win this race.”

Tony said,

“Ten-thousand-dollar paint jobs don’t win races.”

I nodded my head, then we silently climbed the hill where we would sit to watch the race.

The track at Road Atlanta is two-and-a-half miles of hills, valleys, winding curves, and long straightaways that eat most of the cars and drivers who dare to place tires on its asphalt.

A grass-and-tree-covered park sits in the center of that fierce track like a glittering jewel. This is where we will sit on blankets and watch cars fly past at startling speeds as 67 drivers try to outdistance each other for 6 screaming hours.

At the end of the appointed time, only 24 cars remained on the track.

Number 52 won by an impressive margin.

A client said something to me three weeks ago that triggered my memory of standing on that racetrack with Tony 48 years ago.

When a young client said that he was thinking about spending a huge amount of money for new truck wraps, I was instantly transported back to that track, listening to Tony explain why the car with the $10,000 paint job would win the race.

My client owns a fast-growing home services company that sends technicians to houses to fix things that are broken. He has only been in business a few years.

I accepted him as a client because I saw that he had already begun doing the things that will take his company higher than the tops of the mountains that surround him.

When he told me that he was thinking of investing a shocking amount of money to have his service trucks re-wrapped, I asked, “Why?”

He said he had read a list of extremely successful companies who had all used the same graphics house to design their new truck wraps.

I asked,

“Was it the owner of the graphics house that compiled and published the list?”

My client said “Yes.”

I said, “I once went to an Italian Restaurant in Weehawken, New Jersey that had a prominent sign in the foyer that said, “This Dining Establishment is Highly Recommended by its Owner.”

We both laughed. Then I said to my client,

“Paint jobs don’t win races and truck wraps don’t grow companies. The owners of every company on that list had already done everything they could do that would make a difference. When they had run out of ways to spend money on things that actually matter, they decided to get an expensive paint job.”

Then I concluded my counsel by saying,

“You own this company. I do not. My job is to help you do whatever you choose to do. If you feel like you have already done everything that you know for sure will make a difference, then spend the money for the truck wraps. But don’t think that those companies became successful because of their truck wraps. Those companies became successful because they had already done everything else that matters.”

I do not yet know what my young client will choose to do.

But I do know two things:

He is smart, hard working, and is outdistancing all of his competitors.
Paint jobs don’t win races.

Roy H. Williams

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