Business innovation and re-invention has sex appeal. Shoring up your market niche, refining your business processes, honing your marketing, improving your understanding of your customers' needs, and becoming a world class expert demand hard work, attention to detail, and faith--in other words, not so sexy!
Have you gotten caught up in the frenzied strategy and talk of business innovation and re-invention? President Obama touted these in his State of the Union address as what's going to turn around the US Economy. Innovation and re-invention make for sound bites, but they just don't replace a good old-fashioned ethic of hard work, caring for the customer, rewarding the employees, and creating a better value at a better price.
Small business owners in particular are susceptible to the allure of innovation and re-invention. I've advised far too many business owners over the years whose "the grass is always greener" mentality prevents them from benefiting from years, sometimes decades, of investment and effort to build a business. I have yet to find a small business that couldn't be improved by at least 10% if it just stopped talking about itself and actually marketed itself in its customers' self interest.
I believe everyone is a leader of something. It starts with their own life and radiates outward from there. I also believe that everyone has genius designed into them where they are amazing experts.
I'm an Apple Mac fan. When you walk into an Apple retail store you'll discover the genius bar where you can get help with your Apple purchases. Apple gets that people have a genius about them so why not get help from fellow geniuses?
Here's an example from a couple of weekends ago. Judith, my wife, and I walked Hamlet to the Winter Park Farmers Market to browse and get some fresh vegetables. There was a gentleman, Mike Mannix, selling homemade organic vanilla bean extract. I asked how he got involved with staring his business. Mike unravelled an amazing and romantic notion of vanilla beans in history, how they are cultivated and harvested in a few places in the world, and why vanilla beans were so expensive and special. Wow! Talk about a passion for his product. Mike may be one of the top 100 experts in the world in vanilla beans. Does it matter? To me, he was the #1 expert in the world. I trusted his expertise within 5 minutes of chatting with him. Order some Mannix Vanilla.
You can be that same specialist in your business or industry who is highly regarded by peers and customers alike for your expertise. Follow your passion, be odd, look crazy, see the world differently, make a difference!
Hey, look at me! I am the #1 expert in the world in helping people being on-purpose. That isn't boasting, that's quiet confidence because I've been at this for nearly a quarter of a century. I'm shoring up my business to go deep in order to help this message go more places.
How much more innovation and re-invention do you need? If you love what you do, then double down your efforts, pay attention to the details, and become a better marketer. Learn how to sell. The rest will take care of itself.
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