miercuri, 14 decembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : Tricked into playing the wrong game

The intelligent writer who dumbs down her work in order to make it more popular. The successful small businessperson who gives up the edge that made the business work in order to make it bigger. The entrepreneur who stops leading...

Tricked into playing the wrong game

The intelligent writer who dumbs down her work in order to make it more popular.

The successful small businessperson who gives up the edge that made the business work in order to make it bigger.

The entrepreneur who stops leading in order to chase a trend and get funded.

The interesting website that stops caring about content so it can focus on clicks.

The happy kid who abandons good friends in a search to be the cool kid instead.

The beloved brand that walks away from integrity in order to chase mass.

The engaged employee who gives up the craft in order to move up and become an unhappy manager instead...

Bigger isn't better. It's merely bigger. And the mass market might want what the mass market wants, but that doesn't mean that it's your market.

       

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marți, 13 decembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : When your marketplace shifts

It might happen to you. Many markets have a base (people seeking a solution), a middle (people seeking some originality, something new, something a little better) and a top (educated and passionate consumers willing to go extra miles to get...

When your marketplace shifts

It might happen to you.

Many markets have a base (people seeking a solution), a middle (people seeking some originality, something new, something a little better) and a top (educated and passionate consumers willing to go extra miles to get something special).

Here's what happens (imagine travel agents, for example, or the farmers' markets in France):

A. a disruption happens to the marketplace, instantly sucking the base out of the market. When was the last time you called a travel agent? Or, in the case of France, the hypermarche destroyed the need to wait for the weekly market to get some eggs and some carrots.

B. without a base, merchants have to struggle to attract enough business to stick around and to invest in getting better. Many of these merchants either don't have the skills, the resources or the good taste to build a business without the base. They slowly, and painfully, disappear.

C. A few flee to the top. These are the folks with great heirloom tomatoes for sale, or the ones who specialize in high-end cruises or adventure travel. But it's tough going, because without the base and the middle, every sale is on a knife's edge, every customer realizes how much power she has.

The marketplace disruption puts huge pressure on any merchant who merely created a commodity. This means vineyards, graphic designers, photographers, etc.

When you see it coming, there are only two choices:

Run like hell to a new market, or,

Move up, faster and more boldly than anyone thinks is rational.

       

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luni, 12 decembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : Two quality spirals worth avoiding

The downward quality spiral: You cut some corners, saving some time and some money. For a little while, you can coast on that. But then demand goes down, you can't get the same pricing, there's less money, which means you...

Two quality spirals worth avoiding

The downward quality spiral: You cut some corners, saving some time and some money.

For a little while, you can coast on that.

But then demand goes down, you can't get the same pricing, there's less money, which means you can't invest, which means quality goes down again, and again, and then you lose.

Or, consider the other direction:

You improve what you make, you invest the time and effort and resources and you make the best thing you can imagine.

The crowd goes wild, you get more invitations, more revenue, more opportunities.

And then you exceed expectations again.

It's great, until. Until you become paralyzed. Until you decide (mistakenly) that you are in the exceeding expectations business. That can't possibly scale forever. So you stop.

And then we all lose.

Seeing a spiral coming is the key step in avoiding it.

The productive professional realizes that keeping promises is often enough. Randomly exceeding those promises is magical. But the key is 'randomly'. Unexpected delight is priceless, and something you can deliver on.

We need you to keep showing up.

[Today, Monday, is the last day to order my titanic new collection, What Does It Sound Like When You Change Your Mind, if you want delivery before the holidays. You can find out more about it right here. I'm so pleased at how it all came together. (Canadians, alas, your copies are caught in Customs, but we're trying mightily.)

And Your Turn, my most recent full-length book can most probably get to you in time for gift giving as well. Thanks.]

       

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