Getting out of the way so that things can happen organically.

YOU (the business owner, founder, director) are in 9/10 cases the bottleneck, so stick to these three criteria: do it, delay or delegate… (and there are many spins of those three).

(In most cases though – it’s delegate!)

Trust your people and let the business grow without you holding it back….

Note: this of course applies to anyone achieving something, anywhere, anytime (not just business owners).

“Shorten the release cycle and still get great features in front of users when they are ready, Make the schedule more predictable and easier to scope, Reduce the pressure on engineering to “make” a release”

In short, to get ideas out the door in a more consistent manner.

That’s an incredibly iterative process though, every 6 weeks is a tough schedule however it makes so much sense, if you’re always wrong, you want to keep iterating and getting less wrong.

Also each iteration is a step ahead of the competition, and these steps happen every 6 weeks, who would want to compete with that?

“… there were many rumours circulating about the doings of a digger named Fox, who was said to have “struck it rich” somewhere in the Otago interior. Fox had, indeed, found gold on the Arrow on 9 October 1862. He managed to keep the location of his discovery quiet for a short time, but persistent rumours of a rich “strike” attracted many diggers to the area. In November a further discovery in the Shotover Valley (near Queenstown) confirmed the existence of the Wakatipu field and by December there were 3,000 diggers working the two rivers. A month later there were 6,400 diggers in the district and several shanty towns had sprung into being.”

Whenever a new opportunity opens up, there are a quick few who exploit it, then word gets out of the amazing find and it’s a gold rush.

It’s hot, everyones chasing it, have you heard how much gold they got?!

Reality is that by the time the Gold Rush is happening the realistic chance of you reaping the rumoured rewards are tiny.  Best to recognise a Gold Rush for what it is, the masses catching up with the innovators.

We all know that retail space that can't hold a business, it's a clothing shop, it's a book shop then it's a bakery.

No matter what nothing seems to stick.

There are many reasons for it but the key one I ask myself, are they built for profit?

I pondered this as I saw a car yard selling cars for $1990 and $2660 - a wide range of low priced cars.  How can they possibly make a sustainable profit on that? Sure if they get the cars and put a 100% markup on each of them margins seem good.  Yet they still need volume to sustain a business, 2 cars a week would maybe cover the living costs of the owner.  What if they can't reach that?

Sure enough, I drive past a few weeks later, no stock shifted, I don't think they will be around for long.  Have you actually looked at your model, are you built for profit? Or are you just subsidising your time...

It’s actually quite interesting what Google can do with search, they can even map the spread of the flu, you’ll see New Zealand is moderate at the moment (probably due to the cold snap of the last fortnight).

Or you can look at Google Insights to see how your market is performing, see how it grows, or identify seasonalities.

Go have a play, sure you can do something pretty smart with the right information.

Each and everytime you need to start from scratch.

Whereas if you had a common thread, your personal brand, behind each and everyone you can ‘leverage’ the benefit of each.  Such that each can help your future success.

That way you keep building a platform which allows you to springboard higher and higher.

Just a thought.

If you’re speaking, running a workshop, doing a presentation – record it!

As a default, record everything, share the best of it.

These days we have incredible leverage and you never know when that content may come in handy.  A future job interview, creating a new product, teleconferencing or webinars.  If you’ve done something once you may as well capture it.  At the least you can watch, listen and analyse yourself to look for improvements.  That alone is worth the effort.

–

How to? Grab a Flip Cam, great audio and video, easy for anyone to user (even those that you volunteer).

And I know that sounds dead obvious but step back a second.  And relook.

There was a time before Apple; before Ferrari, before Justin Bieber – and what that means is what they’ve created is entirely possible for anyone to achieve, that is, do not get intimidated by what these guys achieve, it is entirely do-able, they all started somewhere, from an idea.

“Owners and Building Managers can now list their rooftops as available sites for leases and partnerships for solar energy, wind energy, urban agriculture and more. SEGlet automatically calculates solar radiation, wind speed and direction, and climate data about each rooftop listed so that energy and urban agriculture companies can quickly qualify the rooftops as compatible for their projects.”

I only blogged about this a couple of days ago (Rooftops are abundant) – it’s great to see ideas in action (and so quickly).  It’s quite serendipitous, with so many people in the world no idea is original (really), it’s about those that move on them.

They share business stories that teach lessons.

Just the same way legends have been passed down, engaging stories with lessons behind them.

And guess what? It works, presenting the knowledge in that fashion gets cut through and if the objective is message absorption is the objective they (and you) win.

Stories that get through matter, speaking above or beyond peoples capabilities just alienates them.  This is the exact reason why these authors do so well.

A purposeful approach can definitely be a marketing strategy.

Should it actively be a marketing strategy? No.

It should be a way of business and THEN (and only then!) incidentally assisting with the marketing.

It makes much more business sense to go with the open source version, that way you acquire a version that has grown off the back of failure, they’ve already made all the mistakes.

Building a custom system means it’s you that make all the mistakes and inherently pay for them.

WordPress (the engine behind this very blog) is a great example, by leveraging WordPress you tap into the collective knowledge & failiings of millions of installations.

Just a thought, open source is entirely applicable in business, especially when you realise that you’re buying the failure of millions.

Some people are taking a stab at putting gardens on city rooftops (awesome idea!)

But what about suburbia?

My first thought is, create a business that acquires the license to use a rooftop, acquire as many as possible.

Then use this real estate you have effectively leased for many things, maybe solar generation? (then in effect you have your own power generation company).  Advertising?!? Water collection (which you then sell on).  The list goes on.

What would you do?

Do you create stories (through action)?

Or do you tell stories (which inspire action)?

Stories without action mean nothing.  Action without stories don’t inspire.

That’s when they figure out they don’t need that software, or upgrade, or maybe they do.

The key is, to realise that this is both a threat and an opportunity.

This week I’ve made the shift from PC to Mac (well at least giving it a shot). Some software and services have made the shift, others haven’t, on the flipside though I’ve acquired new software/workflows.  Interestingly all my cloud (internet) based services remain – Google Docs etc.

Identify the change/tension points and look at how you can help your customers with the process (and what it means for your business).  What do they do to swap to your service? But also to exit?

(Note: often a streamlined exit for your customers means they are more likely to refer you to others but to also come back, Facebook case in point not allowing exporting of data.)

You can give it a watch over here on TVNZ on Demand.

(Apologies if international readers can’t watch it, if you can’t please let me know.)

Thanks to Top Shelf Productions and the team behind the show for inviting me along, it was an enjoyable experience!

Great topic, classic argument, be cool instead of trying to be cool.

The biggest thing I see, is that, consumers are more assertive with their spending, before they would let minor things slide.  Now though they demand more (perceived) value for their dollar, and that value isn’t always a ‘functional’ benefit, it might be the ease of use an iPhone provides rather than an Android, or the time saving of a personal finance application or the status they get from using the service (or upgrade).

It’s all about catering an experience for each of your customers, it was beforehand, but now when people are assertive spenders even moreso.

Gourmet Supermarkets did will during the recession, as people would rather indulge on an afternoon experience with friends, whereas in the past they might have eaten out.  It’s not that they’re not spending, it’s that they are rewarding those companies which cater experiences that create stories.  These stories create status, memories and most of all a good time.

Hang on wait. How can you expect kids to understand that? You’re right they can’t.

If you run a reading score on that it puts the reading level at 13-15 (Flesch Reading Ease 68.94). Browse the site, it’s definitely aimed at younger kids.  Much younger, more 5-10.

Come on McDonalds… if you need to say it’s advertising you’ve definitely crossed the line, and you’ve even crossed the line in a capacity that even your audience aren’t fully aware they’re being marketed to….shame.

Thus they built the Intel Inside brand and stuck a sticker on every computer that was powered by their chips.

They poured money into marketing to help establish the brand, generate awareness and recognition.

Suddenly consumers became much more savvy and willing to discriminate based on the presence of Intel Inside.

This is a great model for businesses that operate behind the scenes and are trending towards becoming a commodity, it allows you to establish value and ensure your continual part in the value chain.

I’ve seen clothing companies do the same with fabric standards ie Gore Tex… you can be any brand but you want it to be Gore Tex.

In short the Mint.com model is to…

Engage with your audience tremendously well and do so in an ongoing capacity, grab as much attention from the market as you can.  This is exactly what Mint.com does with their blog.

Then provide direct paths to becoming a customer from this attention, you immediately capture both sides.

1) The most amount of attention you can get from your market (and get them talking).

2) Then leverage that attention to provide a stream of customers.

It’s such a nice balance of community, attraction and ensuring business gets done.