Grow or Wither?

Growing your business is something that most entrepreneurs strive to do. The reasons that they want to grow their businesses are many and varied and they include the following: increase profit; position it to sell at a higher value in the future; provide employment opportunities; contribute back to the community; build something for their family; satisfy their competitive nature; they never quit.  Regardless of the specific reason, most small business owners are looking for ways to grow.  Without growth, the business owner runs the risk of stagnation.  You should know that 95% of all new businesses in Canada fail within their first five years of operation.  So, we can ask ourselves this simple question.  Do we grow or do we run the risk of withering?

There are numerous resources that we can call upon in order to support our business planning and decision making.  One very comprehensive source for content is Small Business Solver.  This is a web based resource that is chock full of information that can be used to help guide the small business owner to a greater understanding of how to succeed in his/her business.  Small Business Solver provides subject matter content via over 200 learning modules, webinars, tutorials, and useful financial and planning templates.  There is also a significant discount offering from Staples that is provided as part of the low annual subscription price.

If you believe in life long learning and the enrichment that this attitude delivers, then I’d encourage you to consider a $250 (plus tax) subscription to Small Business Solver.  If you purchase this subscription from my website, you will also receive a full behaviour and motivator assessment complete with a one hour orientation session, at no additional cost.  This assessment alone is priced at $499.  The return on a Small Business Solver investment is significant.

Let Small Business Solver assist you in positioning your business for a future that is bigger than your present.

BIZBUZZ – S. Godin, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

This is episode 1 of my version of BIZBUZZ.  I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to act boldly.

This video highlights some of my selections of the most significant comments made by Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZBUZZ.  This is my attempt to help you generate some buzz in your business.

I’ve chosen to comment on Seth Godin’s book entitled Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

I really enjoyed reading this book and I found a number of very thought provoking ideas and suggestions.

I’d like to comment on three of them.

The first is the overall emphasis on differentiation.  Godin says this OUT LOUD when he claims that the opposite of remarkable is very good.  This bears repeating … the opposite of remarkable is very good!  If you think of a scale that has remarkable at one end and say, mediocre on the other end, how many of us would have placed our business on the wrong side of very good?

My second take-away is that it is safer to be risky than to play it safe.  In a crowded marketplace, Seth Godin suggests that playing it safe, or fitting in, frequently leads to failure.  Are we prepared to exchange safety for riskiness?

Finally, my third choice is the suggestion that your marketing message needs to be targeted towards the innovators and early adopters in the marketplace for your product or service.  Godin describes your message as an ‘ideavirus’ and your task is to find the early adopters who are most likely to ‘sneeze’ your message onwards.  Consequently, he strongly suggests that you avoid a marketing message that is aimed at the general marketplace.  It’s a waste of your resources.

That’s it for the Purple Cow and for me.

Let me know if this produces any insights for you.