In business we refer to a sandbox as the area in which you play or conduct business. It consists of three things: your geographical boundaries, your products or services, and either your client description if you sell direct or your distribution channel if you sell there.
When determining your sandbox, one area of thought is to make sure that the sandbox you are playing in is capable of getting you to the goals you have created for yourself. Problems could include not having enough customers or not having the right customers in your geographical boundaries. The product or service may have saturated the market you’re in, and the client description could have changed or expanded.
In our situation, we found that to reach our goals we need to add a geographical boundary that is larger and more diverse than our existing one in Knoxville, TN. We have the opportunity to open another office in a market that provides this, and we feel this will open the sandbox for us to get where we want to go.
April Cox, my partner and co-founder of Efficience, will be going to Dubai in the beginning of June to start our new office in that fast growing and dynamic city. April has contacts there from her husband and EO members that we have met over the years, so she will be off and running to network and increase our reach in our new expanded sandbox.
Not only will she be in fast growing market, it is also a modern city adapting to the latest technologies. This will be a plus for us at Efficience because we believe there is a better way to leverage technology and growing in a new environment with other companies that believe this also will be mutually beneficial. It takes four hours by plane to get to our office in India from Dubai, so working with our team there will be more “local” for the companies we connect with as we work together.
We are excited for this expansion and the chance to open the door to new relationships, customers, and product opportunities.
Is your sand box big enough to get you where you want to go?