Tag Archives: business thinking

December 23, 2015 · 10:57 am

Defensibility

I was on a call yesterday with a potential client and we were discussing his product. What he has done is to take a number of off the shelf products and integrate them into something really innovative and wonderful. At one point he expressed to me a bit of trepidation with respect to that. In theory, anyone could take those same components and build something similar, although it certainly would take them some time. In a word, he was concerned about defensibility.  

I told him that I was less concerned than he was about it. I likened him to a great chef. The magic is partially in the great ingredients for sure, but the real magic happens in how those ingredients are combined. His goal in building his dish isn’t to make something that is defensible but rather something that delights his customers, is really unique, and that can continue to evolve over time based on feedback.

Instead of focusing on patents to make something defensible, my feeling is that time and money are better spent on drilling down on why a customer will want to choose your product and only your product as a solution to their problem. Remember that the first question you need to ask is “what problem am I solving?” If you are unclear about that, no patent will protect you from failure.

How defensible is Facebook? It really wouldn’t be very hard to do what they’re doing, or at least it wouldn’t have been 10 years ago. Their biggest defense now is simply scale. We join social networks because our friends are there, and migrating everyone we care about to another platform when the one we’re on satisfies our needs is difficult. The newer platforms such as Periscope and Snapchat are solving a different problem which is why they are scaling too.

Many people do what I do. There are tons of consultants and even more bloggers. I like to think that what my clients and my readers get from me can’t be duplicated since my life experience, intelligence, and creativity are mine alone. I’m sure each of them feel the same way about themselves. My blog and my business are defensible because I use those raw materials to solve problems in a unique way. Do you?

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December 18, 2015 · 11:52 am

Bad Corn

It’s Foodie Friday! With the new season of Top Chef in full swing, I thought I’d use something that happened on last night’s episode as our topic this week. If you’re a fan of the series and have not yet watched the latest episode, mild spoiler alert!

Public relations of high-fructose corn syrup

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The chef who was eliminated last night made a dish that contained a corn and chorizo hash as an accompaniment to the protein, shrimp. When facing the judges, the question was raised why she chose to cook the corn. The judges thought that some crisp, cool corn would have complemented the shrimp, which was served outdoors (on a golf course!) in the heat. The chef’s reply was that the raw corn seemed overly starchy and she didn’t think it would have been any better raw than cooked. Her hope was that cooking would transform some of the starch. She was then asked the obvious question: why use the corn at all if you weren’t happy with the quality of the ingredient? Which raises our business point.

We often get handed inferior ingredients in business.  These can range from the dead weight employee who is unmotivated and less skilled to the messy financial plan.  The right answer isn’t always “let’s see what we can make out of this.”  Sometimes we need to find different ingredients or change our initial plan for the ones we have.  We get into trouble when we plow ahead, inflexible and wearing blinders.  Markets change, consumer tastes change, and stuff happens.  That doesn’t mean we should constantly be changing course, but it does mean that subtle adjustments are as much an ongoing part of business as tasting and seasoning is a constant part of cooking.

I rarely go to the market with a complete list.  I like to see what looks good with a general plan in mind about what I feel like cooking.  I try to approach business the same way – have a plan, but find the best ingredients and be ready to adjust.  I mean, who wants to pack their knives and go based on a bad piece of corn?

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November 19, 2015 · 11:51 am

1,800

Yesterday’s edition of the screed was the 1,800th post. At roughly 350 words per, that’s 630,000 words I’ve written in an effort to make sense of business. I’ve written approximately 250 posts each year for the last 7. While not every one of those posts has been original (I do republish some stuff), each one has been carefully considered for its topic and usefulness to you folks. I’ll leave it to you to judge how well I’ve succeeded, although I hear from some readers that while some posts are enlightening, others are just too confusing. Well, yes. That’s kind of reflective of business, isn’t it?  

Since 1,800 feels like a milepost on the way to 2,000, I’m going to do something that I like to do with clients after a long meeting: sum up. If you hang around this space long enough you’ll pick up on a bunch of recurring themes, and while I’d hope that you’ll continue to come around here each day, let me make things a little easier for you in case you miss something. All of what follows should feel very familiar and, hopefully, not new. In no particular order:

  • The reason any of us are in business is to solve problems for our customers. If our product or service doesn’t add value and/or solve a problem, it’s useless, even if it’s free.
  • Hire smart people who possess the intangible skills you can’t teach: work ethic, honesty, humility, and hunger to succeed. Treat them well, train them even better, and demand their best.
  • Technology changes; basic, sound business principles don’t. Don’t confuse the technology with the business, even if the business IS technology.
  • Finally, while it’s impossible to ignore “the bottom line” as we run our businesses, for the most part our focus needs to be squarely on our customers.  We need to see our world from their perspective and recognize that their perspective might be very different from that of the business.  Customer focus is imperative, although (as we’ll see tomorrow), that doesn’t mean the customer is right 100% of the time (but they are way more than most businesses appreciate).

The above is a little cheat sheet to understanding what’s going on here most days.  In theory, anything you read will fall into one of those theme buckets.  I hope you’ll continue to do so.  Please?

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