Tomorrow at 11 a.m. EST (9 a.m. PST) I will be holding an executive briefing on ePrize, the world’s largest interactive promotions company. Sign up now for this FREE webinar by clicking here. Join me as I speak with ePrize’s CEO Josh Linkner to uncover the secrets of ePrize’s success.
When you log on to
a web site and punch in a code you found under a bottle cap, there is a
good chance you are experiencing ePrize’s work firsthand. The company
works with three quarters of the top 100 brands and has more than
doubled in size in the last two years. Since its inception, ePrize has
consistently produced about 40 percent annual revenue growth.
Linkner has created a uniquely innovative company and uses unorthodox methods to motivate employees. Linkner and his team also spend a lot of energy and dedication developing business strategy, and I’ve identified three clear-cut strategies that have helped ePrize reach true dominance.
1.Invite your competition onto your roof
Nothing
consolidates a team and brushes away internal squabbles like the threat
of a common enemy. Because ePrize’s next largest competitor is too
small to raise its blood temperature, the company created a fake enemy named Slither Corp. to keep its employees on their toes.
2.Seize the opportunity
Linkner started ePrize in 1999 when he saw a gap between traditional promotional companies and internet advertising.
The promotional industry is actually a relatively large part of many businesses’ marketing dollars, and those leading
the industry at the time were making plenty of money. Fat and happy,
those companies may have seen that promotions were heading toward the
internet, but they were slow to jump on board.
3.Force a two-front battle
ePrize’s current market share is directly related to the foundation and creation of the company. They
compete with traditional promotions companies, online marketing
companies and traditional advertising agencies. But those competitors
see ePrize as a technology company and choose not to compete on that
level.
By
being a combination of parts, ePrize created a whole that others cannot
compete with. Traditional promotions companies cannot justify the
technology investment ePrize has already made to produce highly
sophisticated technology-enabled promotional campaigns. And technology
marketing firms lack the experience to do promotions as efficiently and
effectively as ePrize.
ePrize
owns the interactive promotional market, but the management refuses to
accept the status quo. Its aggressive approach to growth and new
innovations makes ePrize an industry leader and an effective category
killer. By using a playbook that consists of several tactics, including
invite your competition onto your roof, seize the opportunity and force
a two-front battle, ePrize outthinks it competition and scares off
would-be opposition.
Ask yourself the questions below to see if you can use one or all of these strategies.
1. How can I find new ways to encourage my employees?
2. Do I see a gap in my industry's products or services?
3. How do I see our company? How do I see my competitors' companies? How do they view us?
As I finish my review of Vistaprint, I wanted to provide a link to the Vistaprint executive briefing webinar I held a couple of weeks ago. By uncovering some of the key strategies that this printing giant has employed, I aim to encourage other business leaders to come up with new approaches to outthink their competition. To view the webinar, please click here.
Wrapping up the examination of Vistaprint, I am reminded of an old Chinese fable that
warns against climbing a mountain to fight a lion because a lion’s
conditioning, its complex network of habits and responses, are finely
tuned to fighting among rocky mountain tops. Instead you want to lure
the tiger out of the mountain. This turns his instincts into
liabilities. Keep reading below to see how Vistaprint beautifully applies this strategy.
Challenge them to leave their stronghold
We grossly underestimate the extent
to which unconscious conditioning – the beliefs, habits, and
perceptions we collect through experience – plays on our behavior.
Cognitive scientists and linguists estimate as much as 98% of our
thought is not conscious. Buddhists have developed several methods and
frameworks that help us appreciate how little of our thought is conducted
in view of our conscious. We are literally operating on autopilot most
of the time, unaware of how our subconscious guides our actions.
Since advantage depends
on a company behaving differently than the competitors, it becomes
critical that leaders who wish to build an advantage understand and
leverage the 98% of thought that is guiding their people’s behavior.
Vistaprint seems to use
conditioning intentionally to build differentiation and advantage. We
can see this clearly in how Vistaprint views itself. When I asked Wendy Cebula, Vistaprint’s president of North America, to characterize her company, she immediately replied, “At the heart we are really a technology company. We start with what is important to our customers and look at how we can use technology to help them do that.”
This claim is supported
by data. I analyzed the last five years of press releases and annual
reports of Vistaprint and its closest competitor Consolidated Graphics.
By reviewing 2,400 pages of text, I looked to see how often each
company used words like customers, consumer, user, buyer, or purchaser.
By comparing the two companies’ language, we can look into the internal
culture of those businesses and see how they really see the world.
My research found that Vistaprint
is clearly and measurably more customer-focused and less
printing-focused that Consolidated Graphics. While the two companies
talk equally about technology and efficiency, Vistaprint talks about
the consumers or clients twice as much. Vistaprint talks about printing less than one third as often.
By examining Vistaprint’s messaging, we see that it thinks
about the customer twice as often. Consolidated Graphics talks about
printing three times as often. Vistaprint is a consumer-focused
company. Consolidated Graphics is a printer.
So how does that
resonate and provide a tangible competitive advantage? Because
Vistaprint sees the world differently (technology and consumer
focused), it naturally acts differently. Its people make thousands of little decisions every day that make sense for a consumer-services company. Those same choices may be counterintuitive for a printing-focused business.
Thus Vistaprint seeks to differentiate itself a thousand times a day from its traditional rivals.
Vistaprint has wisely
stayed out of Consolidated Graphics’ stronghold, choosing instead to
occupy terrain on which a printing company’s condition offers no advantage. This forces Consolidated Graphics
to choose between two losing options: come out of its stronghold and
risk losing or stay in its stronghold and watch Vistaprint grow.
Vistaprint sticks to
its stronghold because it does not seek out to hire printing experts.
With the exception of workers who actually operate VIstaprint’s
machines, almost none are industry experts. As Wendy Cebula says, “We hire smart people who know technology and are willing to be audacious.”
Ask yourself the
questions below to see how you can lure your competitors from their
strongholds or force them to let you expand uninhibited.
1.What is my stronghold? What do we do differently?
2.What is our competitor’s stronghold?
3.How can we expand our stronghold while avoiding stepping into theirs?
We like to view the world in black and white, good and bad, friend and foe. But as industry lines blur,
such clear distinctions become even more difficult to see within our
complex reality. This creates an opportunity for those willing to seize
it. You can befriend enemies.
Vistaprint, the printing giant that I started covering last week, is actively doing this. The company basically deals with four types of competitors:
1.Traditional printers, like Consolidated Graphics
2.Office supply retailers like Staples, OfficeMax, and even FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) with on-site print stations that serve small businesses
3.Home
printing by small businesses that can buy new workstations from
Hewlett-Packard and other computer companies and print on an as-needed
basis
4.Other small technology start-ups that offer competing services
Vistaprint’s
management has found a way to deal with each competitor to ensure its
own success. By keeping a close eye on the small tech companies, it
also uses its scale – two massive printing plants in the U.S. and
Europe – to achieve economies of scale that are difficult for start-ups
to match.
Similarly, it pays attention to emerging home printing technologies. By offering better pricing and better quality than at-home print jobs, Vistaprint takes the guess work, effort and time out of preparing professional marketing pieces for small businesses.
To compete with OfficeMax and its peers, Vistaprint has adjusted its strategy to become helpful. These local, on-site companies seem to be the biggest threat to Vistaprint’s small business target audience, so Vistaprint’s management has used an unorthodox approach to maintain and grow its market share.
Instead of taking these companies head on and trying to attack their turf, Vistaprint has offered a lending hand to its competitors. It has signed agreements with many of these companies to offer Vistaprint’s services as a white label service.
That
means when you go to such stores you may find a kiosk, branded as that
retailer’s own service, that allows customers to design and print
business cards, folders, and other products. But what you do not see is
that Vistaprint is the one taking that order, preparing the files and running the printing jobs. You don’t know it, but you are actually using Vistaprint services.
This is helpful to OfficeMax
and its peers because it allows them to quickly provide a competitive
service at a lower cost. But it also preempts potential competition. As
Wendy Cebula, Vistaprint’s president of North America, explained to me,
“One chunk of the market will be taken by OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, and
the like. But we have partnerships with OfficeMax and FedEx Office and
also with Viking (Office Depot's EU division) … one way for competitors
to get into our space is to partner with Kinkos. So it’s great offense and great defense.”
The
traditional printers operate from an older view of competition and so
naturally adopt patterns of competitive behavior that are fundamentally
different than Vistaprint’s. Where they see scale, Vistaprint sees technology. Where they see direct competition, Vistaprint befriends an enemy. By blending black and white, Vistaprint creates a huge gray space of powerful competitive advantage.
Ask yourself the questions below to see how you can develop an unexpected advantage by befriending a foe.
1.Who are my direct and my indirect competitors?
2.What do we produce that is different or better?
3.Is there a way to share information, products or services with an indirect competitor to attack a direct competitor?
4.Is one of my direct competitors a company that can help mine?
5.How could I partner with my strongest competitors take over our industry?
To understand how Vistaprint has become the world’s leading provider of printing services to small businesses, you need a brief overview of the printing industry.
People
buy printing services because of price, convenience, and quality. They
can easily compare printing companies across these dimensions. And
because printing companies depend on the same suppliers for printing
technology, they eventually all look the same.
Winning this game has come to depend on scale. He who prints more and can offer a lower price and capture more profit. Other than that, commonly accepted wisdom says there are few opportunities to establish a sustainable edge over others.
It
is precisely when industry players and experts have arrived at such a
conclusion that innovators can seize the advantage. When your
competitors think they have the answers they stop questioning how to
do things better. When they settle on “best practices,” when you hear
them say “this is the way things are done,” or “it has worked this way
for years,” at that moment there may exist an opportunity to disrupt
your market by breaking the accepted rules.
As
it turns out, Vistaprint’s founder, Robert Keane, was a rule breaker.
Keane applied a key strategy to find that unattainable competitive
advantage. He refused to believe that printing is mostly a commodity
business that one can only win with scale and customer service.
Instead, Keane decided to focus on process innovation.
Coordinate to Rise Above the Competition
At the core of the Vistaprint strategy is a seemingly straightforward process innovation.
This innovation broke an accepted rule traditional printers had assumed
was insurmountable: the cost of printing the short run jobs that small
businesses demanded was too expensive for small businesses to afford.
Since
printing economics are high on fixed costs – it costs as much to set up
a machine to print 150,000 business cards as it does to print 1,000 –
printers would have to charge exorbitant rates to the small businesses
that wanted to fulfill small orders.
So Vistaprint changed the process. It built software that only required print jobs to have the same physical format, which means they were the same size and paper type. Then they laid the appropriate individual business designs over a large, table-sized piece of print paper, as if it were one run. By
doing this, Vistaprint is able to print a thousand sheets deep, cut
them into separate stacks and serve multiple clients at once.
For instance, when Vistaprint runs a business card job, it prints a thousand sheets deep and cuts them into 143 stacks. That allowsthem to print 143 individual designs 1,000 pages deep. That is equivalent to printing 143,000 business cards in one fell swoop.
This insight derives its power from a natural principle: when
you coordinate uncoordinated things they become new, bigger things.
When birds fly in formation they become a flock, fish become schools,
buffalo become herds. Ask
yourself the questions below to see how you can coordinate something
that will change the status quo and allow you to work at a higher
level.
1.What is the accepted way of doing things? What are the industry rules?
2.Are there efficiency gaps in the traditional process?
3.Is there a new product or service that my company can offer to shake up the market?
4.Is there a way to use current infrastructure or technology to offer this new service or product?
I just came back from conducting my program in Panama, and while
I have been through the Panama City airport several times, I had never
stepped outside its walls. This is a fascinating country. We had 150
attend the seminar
including government leaders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs. The conversation
showed me how seriously Panama is taking its opportunity to innovate on
a national scale. I don't mean "spur innovation" as we are framing the
challenge in the United States, but rather, Panama is looking at itself
as an innovation and trying to understand the unique role it can play
in the region and world.
This
fact was reiterated on my flight back home. I found myself sitting next
to the CEO of a specialty chemical company that distributes chemicals
around the world. As we talked about Panama’s evolution over recent
years, he grew animated, explaining why, after looking at several
options in Latin America, his company decided to make Panama the
logistical center of their Latin American operations.
Panama,
he said, has the largest free zone in the region; the country requires
everyone to learn English in school so it is easy to find English
speakers; and it is easy to find well-educated, skilled logistics
experts. He said, “Panama is becoming the Hong Kong of Latin America.”
This view was then
supported that evening by a friend of mine. At a wine shop in
Greenwich, Conn., which had been closed down for a private happy hour,
I talked with a close friend and his wife. He is the head of Latin
American sales for the animal health division of a major pharmaceutical
firm. He said they had recently completed a broad study to analyze
where they should base their logistical hub in Latin America, through
what port should they funnel their distribution train and hold their
inventory. They decided on Panama.
So
how has Panama achieved this respect from and allure to businesses?
Like many of the thriving companies we review here, Panama’s government
and businesses are following at least two time-tested strategies.
Befriend your enemies
One
perspective we’ve seen is that it is easier to grow by helping your
competitors than by fighting them. This cuts against an instinctive
desire to “beat the competition.” As Sun Tzu and Mahatma Gandhi have both suggested in their own way – befriending an enemy is a far better approach.
During my Panamanian presentation, a participant,
who heads a government agency, talked about Panama’s opportunity to be
the “service” for the world’s “products.” Most other Latin American
countries are staking out product positions. For example, Colombia is known for coffee, Peru for gold, etc. All of these goods need a path out of the region and the Panama Canal can provide that.
By
working with neighboring countries and offering the service-side of
business, Panama can be seen as an ally to all South American
governments and corporations.
Coordinate the uncoordinated
Innovation builds on innovation. For example, Disney’s skill at early
animation gave it a unique advantage at designing theme parks. Circuit
City’s experience running retail stores (the company was once the
leading electronics retailer) parlayed well into selling used cars
(CarMax is a spin-off of Circuit City).
Panama is seeking to consolidate the skills it has developed by operating its canal to become the worldwide center of logistics. Its banks, insurance firms, lawyers, and other experts, if coordinated correctly, could form a unique cluster of logistical experts and a strong infrastructure. The plan, as it was briefly described to me, is to cultivate this cluster in a national advantage.
This focus on building innovation was brought up at dinner that night with some close friends of mine. As we sucked on clams sautéed in garlic and picked at spicy ceviche, one of my friends – the former Panamanian Ambassador to Singapore – talked to me a bit about the parallels between Singapore and Panama.
Both Singapore and Panama are small countries on the outskirts of large, diverse, economically robust
regions. They both cluster experts that make them a natural gateway for
the region to reach the world. They are both relatively easy for
foreigners to navigate. And as you drive under the towering, dense
skyscrapers of Panama City you cannot help but think - could Panama engineer in Latin America what Singapore has done in Asia?
Keep a lookout on Panama. Next year – I was told – could be the year when the rest of the world comes to realize its potential. And
ask yourself the questions below to see if you can use some of the
strategies that Panama is employing to grow innovation in your own
business.
1. What is the biggest time-waster of my business or process?
2. What is the number one complaint from my customers and clients?
3. How could I work with another company to streamline inefficient processes?
4. Who can I coordinate to provide a better service or product?
Robert Keanehad one year to plot out his business. He went to INSEAD
business school in France with the idea of an opportunity. Over the
course of his one-year MBA program, during a class on new ventures, he
had a chance to lay out how he would seize it.
His business plan grew into Vistaprint,
the world’s leading provider of printing services to small businesses
around the globe. What started a "job” without pay when Robert
graduated from INSEAD in 1994, now, as of 2009, generates over $500
million in revenue, produces 60% gross margins, and is transforming how
small businesses around the world market themselves.
Whether Vistaprint
will continue disrupting its competition and fulfill its
goal of “building one of the truly revolutionary and sustainable
business institutions that emerge each decade, but of which there are
only a handful,” is still uncertain. However, it is trying to be to
printing what Ikea is to furniture or Southwestis to airline travel. But to understand how this company has so
swiftly carved out a space for itself in an old industry dominated by
behemoths gives us valuable insights in how outthinkers disrupt their competition.
A
while back I wrote about how angry America seems to be and how as
business people, we need to make sure our products don’t wind up on the
forefront of consumer rage. The piece got me thinking about another
question – why are we so angry?
I can’t help but be startled by the
mass frustration that is strewn across the television and web. And
maybe that’s the problem – maybe we are seeing so much rage and then in
turn are becoming angrier.
Iacoboni’s research has shown that we see other people as ourselves reflected as if in a mirror. In other words, I will understand a situation or an individual’s feelings because my mirror neurons pretend that I am going through the same thing.
The
traditional humanistic view is that we are all individualists, and we
only care about ourselves and our self-preservation. The discovery of
mirror neurons clearly shows that this isn’t the case, and instead, we
are wired to feel empathy.
So if we smile when we see smiling people, then doesn’t the same thing happen when we see rage? When we are surrounded by anger, then we become angrier. So despite the fact that we are actually wired to be empathetic and good, the bombardment of negative images makes us more negative.
Think
about it – there is rage everywhere. The news keeps showing angry town
hall protests, people are booing at the Opera, and pundits scream at
one another on television. It’s no wonder people are so angry. Add in genuine fear
– fear of losing jobs, fear of growing national debt, and fear of
terrorist nations – and we are a melting pot of water getting ready to
boil.
So
how do we fix this? Well, we could start with remembering what’s good
about our society as a whole. The news could show a few positive
stories for a change, and maybe President Obama can use some of that
calm charm to remind us that we are in this fight as one country, one
people.
Iacoboni
says that “labels” are what drive people apart. Because humans tend to
separate each other into groups, we lose some ability to empathize with
people on a humanistic level.
And
he's right. For example, let’s look at the healthcare debate. What’s
interesting is that almost everyone out there can agree that some
healthcare reform is necessary. But our leaders cannot find common
ground. Democrats took tort reform off the table from the beginning and
Republicans won’t even discuss a public option. The refusal to see the
debate from multiple perspectives will cause none of us to win.
So
let’s get on the same page. Let’s bend a little so that the country
doesn’t break. Let’s remember that this is our home, our nation, and
that our diversity and work ethic make us great. And ask yourself the questions below to see how you can do a better job of uniting your office, family or community.
What activities can we perform to make our office or family feel more like a team?
Is there a new product, service or discount that my company can provide to spread the message of inclusion?
Can I partner with other local companies to strengthen my local community and economy?
Last week the Iraqi government launched a new version of its official history. As students return to school from the Ramadan holiday they found new history books waiting for them that include the major changes the nation has experienced in recent years and open up topics that were once censored.
This power to write history is sacred. As Oscar Wilde said, “Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.”
This power comes from the fact that the narratives
we live in have a powerful, hidden hand in determining how we interpret
our environment. This fact, long noted by Hindu and Buddhist
traditions, is supported by an ever-growing body of scientific
knowledge.
Innovators who significantly impact the world seem able to recognize when we are living a story with a dead ending. Then they abandon the current tale to enter a new one that empowers people to act when no one else will.
I’ve been researching narratives relating to business, and I’ve found three lessons that can help us better leverage the full power of storytelling.
1. Choose a new starting point
Like
turning the rudder of a ship, you can change the future people
anticipate by retelling the past. One key is to strategically pick the
right starting point.
Let’s consider Hewlett-Packard as an example of this principle. Since 2006, HP has engineered a remarkable turnaround under the leadership of CEO Mark Hurd. But I believe the groundwork for this 180-degree change was laid years prior under his predecessor Carly Fiorina.
Core to her strategy was the idea of “resetting” the HP story by
reaching back to HP’s original roots. The company’s internal and
external messaging brought to life the story of the company’s founders,
Hewlett and Packard, working in their garage, building their first products. In fact the HP “garage” was elevated into an icon that roots the company in a common starting point and grounds them in a history of invention.
2. Show the system is stuck
People are willing to change only when they grow discontented with where things are. In 2007, Michael Dell took back the reins of his company. Dell, the company that had revolutionized the computer industry by introducing a direct-to-consumer model, was in serious trouble as competitors began copying that model. With its stock sinking, the company turned to its founder for help.
In trying to craft a turnaround, Michael Dell has played on the story, as all narrative experts do. He repeatedly says that “this is a defining moment in our history and in our relationships with customers.”
The
first part of his message is a wake-up call: the future that Dell
employees and partners are imagining is not the right one because the
old direct model is no longer unique. He then paints a future of
promise: “We know our competitors drive complexity and needless cost
into consumers’ environments. We
intend to break this cycle.” In other words, he is arguing that the
competition is stuck and this presents an opportunity for his company.
3. Repeat
Embedding a new story requires
far greater effort than you might think. Communicating your version of
the past and future—your vision—demands repeatedly delivering it to
your audience using creative methods to remind them and keep them convinced.
I’ve worked with several companies to embed new stories that alter behaviors and thereby build a competitive advantage.
It usually requires carefully picking the stories that illustrate the
turning points you want people to remember, then telling them over and
over in meetings, by email, through visual displays, in continuing education classes and through textbooks, like the Iraqi government.
But the effort is worth it. Every
leadership book underscores the importance of maintaining a long-term
vision in the minds of your people. This vision is a product of the
past, of the story people tell themselves about what has happened and
therefore what to expect in the future. For your innovations to succeed
you must revise, edit, and rewrite prevailing stories.
Ask yourself the questions below to see how you can rediscover your past and write a new success story.
1. Where did this idea come from?
2. How did the company find its current direction?
3. Is our mission clearly stated?
4. How can I remind my employees that they are working toward something bigger than themselves?
5. How can I use my company’s stories to engage and inspire my staff and my customers?
We see over and over that companies that
are thriving are pursuing something good. While many traditional
companies try to paint themselves “good,” under a thin veneer they
maintain near exclusive commitment to growing short-term shareholder
value. While many “good” organizations try to make a profit, they
remain rooted in a traditional non-profit mentality.
But many of today’s successful businesses were grown from the middle
of these extremes. They do not feel a tug-of-war between being good and
creating shareholder value because these two agendas can actually
depend on each other. Like sleeping and eating, you must have both. You
cannot choose.
When I asked Tom Adams, CEO of Rosetta Stone (RST), about the company’s mission, he
said, “Basically we want to make the world a better place. We imagine a
world where anyone anywhere can learn any language fluently with
Rosetta Stone alone. And that will lead to a better world through more
communication.”
Two months later when I interviewed Rosetta Stone’s head of R&D,
he said something similar, using different words. When people can
explain their company's purpose in their own language, it means they actually understand it, which means there is a chance they truly believe it.
When this purpose links company sales or profit with doing good,
they become codependent. That removes the conflict between shareholders
and society and creates singular clarity.
Since people want to feel good about what they belong to, this
purpose has salutary effects on both employees and investors. Tom says
it enables RST to attract employees who might otherwise scoff at
working for a mid-sized firm.
“We fundamentally want to change how people learn languages. That is
what drives us. It drives not just the employees on the bus today, but
it also allows us to recruit people who would not normally join a
company our size. We have people for whom this is the smallest company
they have ever worked,” says Tom.
And Tom believes this “good” mission also makes investors “proud to
be investors in Rosetta Stone.” This I find more difficult to believe,
but does it matter? Since being good and making money depend on each
other, investors do not have to choose. That is the beauty of adopting
this strategy.
Ask yourself the questions below to see how you can find a business
strategy that aligns all of your missions – your bottom line, your
employees and your community.
1.Do I see a need within my company or within my community that I can assist with?
2.What is the impact of my product or service?
3.How can I use my product or service to serve a greater good?
When something works, people
grow fixated on it. They stop looking for alternative options. And this
fixation creates an opportunity for those willing to reconsider the accepted
approach. The company I introduced last week, Rosetta Stone (RST), hasn’t been
satisfied with the fact that its products work. Instead, it continues to
challenge the norm.
In 1995, RST executives
decided to bundle their language tool products and sell the package for $300,
which was much more expensive than their competitors' price tag of $5 to $20.
If they accepted that the only way to sell language tools was through
bookstores and catalogs, like their competitors were doing, it would be almost
impossible to sell a $300 product. People are unlikely to put that much money
on their credit cards after only reading the back cover of a box.
Recognizing this, RST had to
either give up its $300 pricing strategy or diverge from industry norms. It
dared to veer. RST headed for the mall and airports. It lined up its high-end
language learning software with other kiosks hocking sunglasses and hair
extensions.
RST seemed perhaps a fish out
of water - $300 software next to $20 sunglasses - but this is precisely what a
smart strategist wants. Because the fish
out of water has no other fish to contend with.
The strategy worked. RST’s
well-informed sales people could walk customers through its unique product,
addressing in full detail the concerns that stand between curiosity and
purchase. These kiosks also allowed the sales person to show potential
customers the software and process that makes RST so effective.
“We needed to open places
where we could demonstrate the products,” says CEO Tom Adams. "So we
opened kiosks. We bet that if we demonstrated it to 10 people, five would buy,
because they’d get it.”
This pattern of taking the
unorthodox path has worked for millennia. Genghis Khan used it often to
surprise his opponents. They expected he would come over the flat land, while
he marched his men over mountains and frozen lakes to appear out of nowhere at
the back door. This approach also gave Dell a two-decade-long competitive
vacuum, for others would not risk upsetting retailers to sell directly to
end-users.
RST’s kiosk strategy may keep
competitors out of the way for a while. It may take a few years for them to
copy. But what may offer long-term value is the company’s willingness to veer
from the orthodox path. Tom says, “If everyone is telling you not to do
something, it is very likely the right thing to do. My theory is ‘do the
opposite.’”
If this is true, if RST can
make the propensity for the unorthodox part of its DNA rather than a one-off
strategy, it may repeatedly surprise the market for years. Ask yourself the
questions below to see if you can find an uncharted path to success.
1.What path are
others fixated on because they assume it is the right one?
2.What ideas do I
have to change that approach?
3.How can I make things
better, faster and more efficient?
4. How
can I research my ideas without spending a lot of money upfront?
