Our job as entrepreneurs is really to build a business in which people depend on. The best we can possibly hope for is having a group of people at both ends of the value chain who really need us. Not just customers, but suppliers as well.
Suppliers who need us to succeed so they can feed off our success. Customers who need our stuff to get through their months, weeks or days. When we are needed, we are on our way to have a solid business.
Do your people in your supply chain need you to exist?
There’s been a lot of talk about the end of television lately. You’ve heard it all. But one simple fact I heard today reminded me today of why television is doomed.
Yep, that old chestnut. But let’s stop and think for moment what it means and the legacy issues associated with the concept of the rating and non-rating periods.
It was something television could do. It could ‘have a holiday’. It could do this for one simple reason, it had no real competitors. TV broadcasters justified their actions too. They told us that their TV stars needed a break. They told us they were getting ready for the new season with great new episodes and shows. They told us we could enjoy our favourite re-runs. Sure we could go down the the video rental store, but it was much harder than turning on a television and a poor substitute at best.
Today, the end of the ratings period is a continued legacy which proves that broadcasters still don’t get it. We don’t care what time of year it is, we don;’t have to. We still spend money. The economy keeps churning. We still want current, new, exciting information and entertainment. Good news for us is that now we can go elsewhere to get it. And it’s more convenient than TV. It’s on demand, and uninterrupted. The fact that the ratings period still exists today has me flummoxed.
And as long as the television broadcasting industry thinks it can get away with it’s ‘holiday’, it is yet to understand what is happening. It alone is proof TV as an industry, is doomed. This little thing, the non-ratings period, is proof they don’t believe that is the end of their cosy little attention monopoly.
Good bye television, hope you enjoyed your stay.
5% of our customers wont pay on time
5% of our customers wont pay at all
5% of our employees wont deliver what they are paid to
5% of our employees will steal and or damage company property
5% of business partners will break contracts and even worse, not keep their word
5% the people we meet will be genuinly dishonest and painful to deal with
It’s the 5% rule. In fact quite often business discussion are too often focused on the 5% of times the business model will break down and we will get cheated in some way. The amount of strategy, board room and agency discussions I’ve had about the 5% of people who make business models and ideas imperfect are countless. The point for startups, no less any business, is to accept the fact that all models have gaps. And more often than not these gaps the doing of the 5% rule.
The problems with trying to remove the 5% is that we build gates and protections which often stuff up the 95% which is working. We create unnecessary friction. What we are better off doing is thinking about the problem like water evaporation. It’s going to happening, no matter what we try. But we must remember that the very large majority of people are good.
My advice is simple. Know that it exists, and forge ahead anyway.
You are in a room full of people.
You are speaking to them on stage and have their full attention.
You tell them to pretend all the people in the world are in this room
You ask the people who believe they have ‘above average intelligence’ to raise their hand.
All the people in the entire room raise their hand.
The fact is, exactly half will be above and half will be below… we all assume we are the smart guys, the good guys, the people make things better…. we all believe we are adding positively to the collective intelligence.
But collective intelligence has a slight nuance. It only works when we let people with specialist knowledge fill in our own knowledge gaps and or take the lead in areas of expertise. If instead, we take the average viewpoint of the collective audience we usually end up with a pile of crap. Collective intelligence can only occur when we segregate and allocate information requirements, not when we aggregate. The latest proof of this is Youtube.com
Once upon a time youtube was a reliable source of cool and important videos. Circa 2005 the most viewed, most discussed for the day, week or month was an intelligent reflection what mattered. Now it’s a mish-mash of over produced pop songs, inane comedians, and soft porn. A sad failure of the digital ‘Wisdom of crowds’. Youtube is still incredibly valuable, it just takes a little more digging these days.
The point for entrepreneurs is this: The crowd is not always right. Taking all advice from the crowd on how to iterate your product, service or website could result in a very average product. Intelligent design is usually the work of intelligent people.
One of my favourite business quotes of all time is from marketing Polymath Al Reis who was co-author of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (A must read for all entrepreneurs) and it is this:
This is really a key for anyone no matter what our life is. Decisions from the desk are rarely as insightful as decisions made from the filed. For all the reasons we are aware of such as message dilution , the grape vine et al.
I have been witnessing this first hand as I have invested the past few weeks out on the road visiting my business customers for www.rentoid.com. Put simply I’ve learnt more in the past few weeks than I have in the past few months. Incredible insights as deep and wide as web usability to asset management.
I’ll I can say to startups is this. Get out there and press the flesh and make sure you are not ‘Office Blind’.
“We’re living in a hyper accelerated era where advances in technology have doomed our culture. Before anything interesting can develop it’s blogged to death, marketed and raped until the next hot thing comes along, then repeat process”
Annon – As found in the comments section of www.nowtoronto.com
You have a pulse – it’s important it never stops.
Your business has a pulse – when it stops your customers assume your dead or dying.
This why the following elements are crucial for your business or startup:
Let your customers know you’re alive, and they’ll treat you like you are. Let them think your dead or dying and they’ll ensure you die for sure.
