Monthly Archives: April 2016

April 18, 2016 · 11:55 am

It’s Not Just The Great Idea

I attended a workshop last week. It was through an organization that works with veterans of our military, teaching them a number of the skills they’ll need to succeed as entrepreneurs. I was pleased to be asked to participate and I was also pleased that a number of others were there to lend their support and knowledge to the vets who attended.

One point that I think became clear as the conversation progressed was that a great idea is not necessarily a great business. It also became clear that skills beyond hard work were key to turning a good (or great) idea into a wonderful business. While it was very evident that no one was going to outwork the vets in the room who had begun their business journey, it was also very evident that a bit of guidance could make those journeys more productive.

A few of the budding entrepreneurs presented their ideas to the group.  They were given only 2 minutes, which is a challenging amount of time even for very experienced presenters to make their case.  One person began with the problem and explained the solution his product provided, which is a spot on way to attack this challenge.  Another told a dramatic story and told how she came up with the product but didn’t expand what was her compelling problem into a much broader need.  The last presenter was just confusing.  While he has a fantastic product that could revolutionize small farms, he couldn’t explain the problem and I was left (along with the rest of the audience) wondering what exactly it was he was selling and to whom.  As an aside, the more senior folks in the room helped him craft his pitch to make all of those things more clear.

It’s not just a great idea nor is it a willing attitude and hard work.  Passion is a prerequisite but it’s not enough.  These vets were smart enough to know that and were taking the time to learn the skills required.  They weren’t embarrassed to say “I don’t know” or “I need help.”  Are you?

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April 15, 2016 · 9:09 am

Mirror, Mirror

This Foodie Friday let’s take a good look in the mirror.  What follows is a sad look at some of the deceptive business practices discovered by investigative reporters in two cities.  It might be easy to write them off as some aberrant behavior on the part of a badly-run business except that the investigations found that the practices were widespread.  One can only wonder if rather than being deviant behavior these practices are the norm, and if they’re occurring in your town.  There is a broader business point as well. 

The first of these stories came out of San Diego last summer. You can read the entire article here, which describes how many chefs in the “farm to table” movement are deceiving customers:

Like any good movement, farm-to-table has now been severely co-opted. The stories of restaurants deceiving their customers—or flat-out lying to them—have increased. Multiple San Diego restaurants claim to serve Respected Local, Organic, Sustainable Farm X when in fact they’re serving nameless commodity produce that could be from Chile, for all they know.

Call it farm-to-fable.

So the chefs claim to be using locally-sourced, organic ingredients but are using the same jetted-in, pesticide-laden stuff as your local diner.  One can only wonder how their customers, who pay a premium for these ingredients and to protect their health, felt when they read this.  It is happening in Tampa too, as this piece from the Tampa Bay Times found.  They also explained the rationale behind the deception:

People want “local,” and they’re willing to pay. Local promises food that is fresher and tastes better; it means better food safety; it yields a smaller carbon footprint while preserving genetic diversity; it builds community.

Scummy? You bet.  I’d call it fraud, and one can only hope that each and every place named in these two pieces is out of business shortly.  But as I started today’s screed: we should each look in the mirror.  What are we doing that is at best a bit of hyperbole in our marketing, a little white lie that attracts customers or at worst outright fraud as committed by these restaurants?  What do we tell our customers and is it really what we’re giving them?  Do we use words like “unique” or “hand-made” when our product is neither?

It might be farm-to-fable in the food business but just maybe there is a similar tale being told in yours?

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April 13, 2016 · 9:10 am

2, Not 250

I was listening to one of the many podcasts to which I subscribe yesterday. The speaker was rambling on about the subject of content generation and he said something that made me rewind the podcast so I could be sure I heard him correctly. He was opining that the only reason that companies are spending money on content creation today is to generate data.

His statement made some sense. After all, brands today don’t think of themselves as sponsors of other people’s content. They’ve been sold on the idea that they need to have their own content creation hubs which can populate multiple channels such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. I encourage that in some ways with my clients since who knows the brand better than the brands themselves?  Who better to speak in the brand’s voice? Who ought to know the customer and the customer’s interests and to reflect those perspectives in their content? But in retrospect, I couldn’t disagree more and here is why.

I might be way naive about this, but I think audiences want to be educated and entertained. I don’t think they want to be tricked into being tracked and giving us data. I think when they are offered a list, that list ought not to be on 25 pages so as to squeeze out every last page view and ad exposure. I think they want to feel emotions – awe, wonder, joy, excitement, rage – and not just kill time. When I read articles about how I can create titles (People love lists! People love “epic”!) to lure people to my blog, I get sad.  I understand that many people are intellectually lazy.  I get that there is a reason for the use of TL;DR as a standard retort on the web but maybe that’s a commentary of what passes for most content these days rather than on the specific content.  People have become overwhelmed by crap and they’re weaning themselves off that crapacious diet by minimizing consumption.

I don’t think greatness is anything is measured by the volume of consumption or traffic numbers.  Thre are still fewer iPhones in the world than Android.  There are still fewer meals served at Per Se than at McDonald’s.  If we all do our best not to post 250 times a day but to post 2 great, enlightening things – however long that enlightenment takes – maybe we can stop the downward spiral of attention spans and intellectual curiosity.  If “stupid is as stupid does”, how about we upgrade what we do?

 

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