Business Opportunities Weblog

October 7, 2005 by Dane Carlson | 1 Comment

Seth Godin:

Novelty for the sake of novelty is not only risky, it’s more often than not a recipe for irrelevance. A study of 1,300 publicly traded U.S. companies in fifty-five industries by Chuck Lucier, senior vice president emeritus at Booz Allen Hamilton, found that only four broad ideas, copied over and over again in one sector after another, accounted for 80 percent of the breakout businesses created between 1965 and 1995: power retailing, megabranding, focus/simplify/standardize, and the value chain bypass. True, the big-box store may not be the most original concept on Earth — which is exactly the point! Originality hasn’t mattered a whit to the customers, employees, and shareholders who have enjoyed its application in consumer electronics (Circuit City), home improvement (Home Depot), and office supplies (Staples).

This was an excerpt from Seth Godin’s new book The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable.

In Ideas, Marketing | 1 Comment