Big Ideas Bring Big Returns!
Most people will tell you that the only way to be successful is to work really hard and really smart. Effective and focused effort towards specific goals is a fairly risk free way to achieve economic and personal success, just ask any doctor, dentist or lawyer. Riches are there for those willing to put in the time and work. However, we live in an age of ideas. This is the idea economy and the rules are changing.
Sure hard work toward high leverage activities will always bring results, but there are more and more examples of creative entrepreneurs bypassing the traditional routes to fame and fortune. A little luck, a lot of experimentation and a great idea are often all that is needed for extraordinary returns. This is the second installment of my big ideas topic. You can find the first here. I will soon create a specific page dedicated to these great ideas, so stay tuned.
Remember that you can’t copy a great idea verbatim because in talent oriented markets like showbiz, music and ideas only the absolute best…
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Best Damn Sausages Around!
What makes small businesses great? You don’t need to have the nicest interior to have the most customers. You don’t need to spend the most on advertising. You don’t need to hire the most expensive staff. Nor do you need the most detailed business plan or the most financing. All of those things help but they are not essential. There is only one thing that all great small businesses have and mediocre ones do not and that is personality.
It’s all Relationships
People like to be respected and treated special. If you can do that with your customers you are bound to be a huge success. Relationships are not a commodity to be managed and controlled. Real engagement with real people cannot be faked. If you can connect, really connect with customers, you can have a hit in any industry.
Two businesses I know of are exemplars of this philosophy: Spolumbo’s in my hometown Calgary, Canada and Choshuya yakiniku in my current home Japan. Both are restaurants with a meat focus but on the surface these two businesses could not be more different. Indeed, anyone lucky enough to…
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Who are you? What do you do? What activity are you most identified with? We all seek to be part of some type of community. This starts early in childhood. We start to wear the clothes, listen to the music and do the things our friends or idols do. We all want to be identified with something. Maybe you are an entrepreneur, or author, or athlete, or artist, or musician?
Notice the “or” words in that last sentence, it is not “and”. You can’t be great at everything. In fact if you try to do too many things, like most people, you will be mediocre at all of them. Mediocrity is not the way to success.
It is okay to have hobbies and play around with other things you are interested in, but if you want to be great at something, you MUST focus on that one thing. I call it, FOCUS on the ONE. Commitment is important. People are afraid to commit to jobs, to their hobbies even to the person they love because they might change their mind or they
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Regardless of what industry you are in, you can rest assured that there are dozens, maybe even hundreds or thousands of people doing very similar things with same idea. How many “me-too” blogs are out there trying to find easy riches. How many cafes, restaurants and stores open with similar concepts and designs as more established companies? The risk averse people on the sidelines see a successful individual or company and then they rush in and try to do the same thing.
You don’t risk much starting a blog and letting it stagnate into oblivion, so I don’t shed a tear for the millions of blogs with no readership. However, I do feel bad for all the people sinking their life savings into the tenth version of the same business on the same street. I often use a term for this, “You can’t out Starbuck, Starbucks.” What this means is a small start up with limited capital is not going to effectively compete against an established competitor by doing exactly the same things. How many cafes in the world have copied Starbucks strategy right down to the logos, menu and decor? It is sad that so many people are afraid…
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