“Kegger at my mom’s house!”

It’s known as Kansas City’s little inside joke made famous by KC native & superfan, Paul Rudd.

When the KC Royals won the ALCS championship in 2014, a reporter asked Rudd on national TV, “So, where are you going to be partying tonight?”

Rudd joked back with him about having a kegger and partying at his mom’s house. At the end of the interview, he jumps back into the scene shouting into the microphone, “$5 cover!”

Little did he know, people would take his joke seriously. Many showed up at his mom’s house ready to party, except there was a problem. She no longer lived there.

The door of opportunity closed quickly and the dudes standing in the lawn holding their 6-packs were left out in the cold.

Someone could have capitalized on this joke, but instead, “Keggers at my mom’s house” became a missed opportunity.

That is, until the Kansas City Chiefs won their second Super Bowl title in 2020.

During the post-game celebration, Rudd, who is also a huge KC Chiefs fan, told FOX4, “I’m freaking out. I guess we really got to plan a big ole’ kegger, don’t we?! Somebody better let my mom know.”

This time KC’s little inside joke wasn’t left on the field.

Seizing the opportunity, Rudd teamed up with Big Slick and Charlie Hustle to birth “Kegger at my mom’s house!” tee shirts to benefit Children’s Mercy.

They were able to capitalize on the missed opportunity at just the right time.

Winston Churchill once said, “Opportunity, once spurned, may come again. But the hours that are lost in idleness can never be brought back to be used in gainful pursuit.”

When an opportunity passes, don’t get lost in idleness.

Instead - So, when a similar opportunity comes back around, you’ll be ready to pursue it.

1. Write down problems as they arise and create solutions for each one. By practicing problem-solving, you’ll begin to catch opportunities as they come.
2. Have vision and use it to build products or services for tomorrow. What are consumers going to want in the future?
3. Talk Less, Listen More. Listen to hear opportunities, what are others saying? The smartest people in the room aren’t usually the ones talking but rather taking notes of everything happening. Some of the greatest opportunities are missed by people talking too much.
4. Take an existing concept and make it drastically better. We went into great lengths about this in our whitepaper on disruption.
5. Simplify. What are things people hate to do because it is complicated? Find pain points people have and create solutions for them. If you make it easier, you will always have a market for yourself.

P.S. Someone ought to find out Paul Rudd’s skincare treatment. He looks just as good now as he did back in his 1995 Clueless days.

Maybe he’s born with it. Maybe it’s NEM®.