Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Are You Starting a Business or Just Throwing Mud?
A fellow marketer told me the other day about a friend of his who did something scary. Years ago, he sold office and school supplies.

He took the usual approach. Whenever he had a chance, he added more products to his store.

It seemed, though, that the more products he added, the harder he worked. Yet his profits remained roughly the same.

Finally, he took a good look at his business -- what was working and what wasn't. What he found surprised him.

His hottest sellers were maps. And not just any maps, either. People were buying those little dashboard map books at a rate that he could barely keep them in stock.

So he did a very counter-intuitive thing. He dropped all of his products other than those map books. Instead of adding more products to give customers more choices, he cut back on products and focused on finding more customers who were looking for that one line of products.

His results were just the opposite of what he was used to. Instead of working harder and harder to keep profits the same, he found himself working no harder, but reaping far greater profits.

A lot of business owners wouldn't think of taking such a step. They take the same attitude that this business owner had started with. They think, "The more mud I throw against the wall, the more of it will stick." And I think the reason that we fall into that thinking is because, deep down, we don't believe that anything we focus on will work.

We figure that we need something outside of ourselves to "save us." We need some outside tool or strategy that will attract and win customers. If it relies on what we put into it of ourselves, we fear it will fail and we'll be to blame.

But, hey, if all we're doing is throwing mud against the wall and it doesn't stick, at least our failure isn't our fault. We tried, it's the mud that failed.

In reality, though, the only way to succeed is through the unique effort, knowledge, and passion that we bring to it. Those maps did well for him, but cutting back to just maps was probably pretty scary for that marketer.

He probably heard more than one person tell him he was crazy to move away from being a nice, generic store to a tight niche. He knew he would have to bring his whole knowledge, passion, and perseverance to making it take off. His success would all be on him -- not on the product.

But by making the choice to move away from throwing mud at a wall and bringing all those dabs of mud together and shaping it into a single, artistic sculpture, he finally had something that others would really want.
Jeff

Labels: entrepreneurship, motivation, start business