Hi Dane. How do I grow my business? I seem to be stuck in a rut. -Les
Hi Les. I receive this question almost more than any others.
Everyone asks this question at one time or another. Big businesses and little business are alike in that they all hit a plateau at some point, and have to figure out a way to move above it.
You can always grow your business a little bit, by improving what you do. Improving your product or service, improving your sales and marketing and improving your customer service all work to make things better, a little bit.
But to really grow, you have to do something to change the game, to change the market and to make your competition obsolete.
Google did this to Altavista. Facebook did this to Myspace. Henry Ford did this to the horse. Robots will eventually do it unskilled labor.
You have to do this your competition.
To do this, you have to change your business from one that is serving the needs of your customers today, to one that is serving the needs of your customer tomorrow. They may not know where the market is headed, but you must. If you don’t know, you have to figure it out, and get there first! And then, when you get there, you have to make sure that everyone, and I do mean everyone, understands that the old way of doing things is obsolete.
Just like the horse. Horses aren’t unemployed now because they got lazy as a species, they’re unemployable. There’s little work a horse can do that pays for its housing and hay.
Just like the floppy disk. Floppy disks are obsolete because they don’t work anymore. You could still save data to them if you wanted. They’re obsolete because their storage capacity is too small for today’s content, and there are much better, and faster alternatives.
You can do that to your competitors.
