In the new year we have new business goals and objectives. We plan to do better than last year. We plan to do more….. we must review our strategy…. But before we do we must ask this important question:
Did we execute the current strategy to its full potential?
Or did it just get a bit too hard and boring, and we decided it wasn’t easy enough?
Usually the strategy is fine, and we just haven’t worked hard enough to get through the dip.
There is a Nike commercial that was shot in Kenya with Samburu tribesman speaking in their native language Maa. The slogan “Just Do It” appears when the tribesman is talking. In reality he was saying, “I don’t want these. Give me big shoes.”
We often look for strategic reasons to justify our strategy. In bootstrapping startup land there is no board room of people who need to buy into our ideas. Therefore this can be the best strategic justification of all:
Because I like it.
If you like it, chances are there will be plenty of others who do as well.
As I mentioned in my previous post confused, too much stuff has been running through my mind. So today L did some cleaning out and feel at least a little better. While doing so I was conceiving in my mind things which I think reduce the confusion. I cam up with these 5 things which both ease my mind and provide productive focus. They’re probably not what you’d expect.
I’m going to do these things more diligently and see how it feels.
Today I’m a bit confused. I’ve got so many things on the go at the moment, I don’t really know where to start and I am procrastinating.
In this situation the temping thing to do is to pinball from task to task, making sure we at least touch everything once. Which rarely achieves anything. So here’s what I’m going to do. Clean out my files both digital and physical. Delete as many things as possible and make sure everything that remains deserves to be there. Once this is done, it will be easier to know what’s next.
I was inspired by a recent article from the Australian Anthill about making our business appear bigger than we are. But in the age of authenticity, do we really want that? Sure, appearing big can be a good thing depending on our audience. Certainly, the key point in the article to me was ‘How to appear professional’. But why should professional be inextricably associated with big? Maybe the strategy should be to appear as small as possible. The current market place is not short of large corporates who are starting to understand the importance of personal service again. An example that comes to mind is the Bank of Queensland moving to a franchised branch model – where local ownership is of strategic importance to customers. Especially in such a tarnished industry as banking.
So why would we want to appear smaller than we are? Here’s a couple of thought starters:
Service – it is implicit that service is better when dealing directly with a small group of people rather than a faceless corporation
Trust – Smaller companies are way more dependent on you as a customer. You matter more, so you can trust the fact that they will do all they can to keep you.
Underdog – People love to support the up and comer. The person having a real go. Being small should be embraced and leveraged. Often this might be the only reason people do business with you.
So in the spirit of small = good, here’s the startup blog top 10 list of how to act small. Regardless of our actual revenue:
In preparation for teaching a Brand Management Class today at Melbourne University when I came across an important quote from Steve Jobs about the industrial design of the iPod. When the first generation iPod was finally complete and ready to be unveiled to the public Jobs looked back on the process of how the iPod was designed:
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s the veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it feels like and looks like. Design is how it works.”
Startup blog says: When it comes to design – it should facilitate function before fashion. After which time the human instinct takes over…. the function becomes the fashion.