Do you have a great Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), core purpose, core values, painted picture, and hedgehog strategy? These key aspects of a company’s vision drive it to become everything it is striving to be. Do you have yours? In my experience, most do not. Why? Because it’s hard! After many years, we at Efficience are solid in all of them except the hedgehog, which we constantly struggle to pin down. However, that is the way it’s suppose to work; it takes time and an iterative process to get it done.
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It’s All Relative!
Check out this picture from my trip to India. This is my office manager Mukesh and his family.
Umm . . . are you thinking, “Whoa, my car doesn’t seem quite so small anymore?”
You may speculate, “Wow! This family must have had an emergency! They all had to jump on the bike and race off to the hospital or wherever on an impromptu moment!” Well, that is not the case.
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Can the Entrepreneur Optimism Be Risky?
As an entrepreneur, I consider myself a pretty optimistic person. I look to the future and see a rosy picture filled with visions of a lifestyle that incorporates my dreams. I will sacrifice now acknowledging that I will see better times ahead. Knowing that the little steps of progress I see in my company is leading to something better really gets me excited, and the optimism overflows even more! Have you ever thought this could be a little risky? I didn’t, but let’s explore this some more.
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STOP Doing It!
So much of what we do in business is about the things we need to get done. I need to write a report. I need to send e-mails to my clients. I need to create a budget. I need to put a plan together for the next quarterly meeting. On and on it goes with stuff we need to do in order to make progress in our business. Nothing is wrong with this, especially when it creates progress. Progress has been determined to be the number one motivator of both business owners and employees.
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4 Billion New Customers!
Think about that! If you had access to 4 billion customers, how would that impact your marketing, your strategy, your vision, your opportunities, and your profit potential? Well it’s coming, and I see it happening right before my eyes.
Let me back up for a moment and give you some perspective. As I write this, I am at my office in Pondicherry, India. I started Efficience with my partners April and Rich back in 2004 and came to India shortly after to set up the office. We started with one full time team member and one intern and then quickly added five more. We have now grown to 40 bright, enthusiastic, hardworking men and women.
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Mobile Takeover
When you look at the aspects of positioning yourself in business, think about where the world is going and where you should be to set yourself in its path. Easier said than done, right? How does one know where the world is headed? The answer is to take in as much information as you can that provides the clues to where things are going. Back in my investment days, I spent a lot of time reading research reports and other material that discussed future technologies and trends.
I used to follow an internet analyst named Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley.
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WHO is on First?
You might be thinking “who is on first and what is on second?” if you’ve had any exposure to the old Abbott and Costello joke. What I’m actually referring to though is the first thing that should be done in business; finding the WHO that is your client and defining them as descriptively as possible. To get to second base you do want to find your “What” which is defining your unique offering.
Back in 2007 at the Fortune Growth Summit in Las Vegas, I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Robert Bloom (engaging in conversation around Italian food and his love of the country).
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Discovering Your How, and Owning It
Recently I wrote two blogs on the Inside Advantage, discussing the Who and What that make up your offerings. Today I’m going to finish up this topic and talk about the How and the Own It’s of this great strategy.
The HOW part is your persuasive strategy that gets your Who (your core customer) to buy your What (your uncommon offering). This approach doesn’t void out competition, but it does allow you to stay ahead of them and to stand out from them, a process that is both dynamic and constant.
Bob (author of Inside Advantage) states that there are five hallmarks to a good persuasive strategy:
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Wisdom from the Cash King, Buffett!
Having come from the investment world, I like to stay informed and keep my eye on what people are seeing and thinking about prospects for growth and where the world is going. For that reason, I always find reading Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report written by Warren Buffett very informative, down to earth, and a balancer to all the hype and exaggeration about how bad things look out there. The world is not ending, even though it is going to be a hard road for many.
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WHAT do you provide your clients?
We’ve made it to first and discovered our “who” in the last blog. Now it’s time to talk about our “what” that is sitting on second. To further the discovery into your Inside Advantage, we need to have a cleare understanding of the “what” that you offer to your clients.
What you learn is the difference between what business you think you’re in, versus the business you are actually in. Many businesses think that the transaction that takes place between them and their client is their business. For example, if I remove junk, I’m in the junk business. If I develop software I’m in the software business. If I sell coffee, I’m in the coffee business.
