Business: Better Small-Medium Business: Wisdom From Mark Twain, John Wooden and The Aussie Outback

Summary

Inspiration for the improvement of small medium enterprises can come from anywhere: even Mark Twain, John Wooden and a mining town in the Australian outback.

Once Upon A Time ...

40 years ago I lived in a mining community in a very, very remote Australia. The nearest town was 400 miles away. I found myself volunteering to coach a team of artisans and workers in the event of local basketball. It was rudimentary basketball bush with little or no finesse. But it was very fun. It was the whole community, men and women, 10 years and above.

Message

One Sunday afternoon another volunteer coach and I were having a drink and a chat. "You know," he says, "the great thing about basketball is that the more you learn about it, the more you realize you do not know." I agree. But the time I had no idea how deep was his comment.

That Mark and John Say

Last year, I found two quotes that said the same thing that my colleague from coaching.

Mark Twain said: "It is not what you do not know what puts you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that this is not true. "And John Wooden said:" It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. "

Consequences of Small-Medium Business

Why do not we pay more attention to these intelligent and experienced people? I spent most of the last 35 years advising managers how to manage best companies. This time, I worked exclusively with managers from small-medium business nearly 20 years.

I am fascinated by example how these managers are willing to try to imitate the large companies. I constantly find business managers employ, for example, 26 people tell me what they can learn from a company that employs 26,000 people!

Gurus

And they are also willing to follow certain gurus academics who have outstanding professional reputation. But many of these gurus have never run any type of business in their entire lives.

Examples

In 1981, Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote "Positioning, The battle for the mind." In 2011, 30 years later, readers of "Advertising Age" voted "Positioning" "Most Important Marketing Book Ever". I continues to find managers who say that Jack and Al speech "does not apply to my business." Thirty years after the approval purchaser does not seem to mean much to them.

The enigma

Many managers are reluctant to accept the philosophies and methods have a long history of effectiveness. Yet they cling to methods - written applications for jobs are an example - that are simply no longer works and that technology has caught up. It is also puzzling why so many managers get the latest fashion and run with it simply because it's new, not because it works.

The perils of extension of the pipe and other "Essentials"

Ries and Trout strongly advised against the extension line. It confuses customers and employees. They also stressed that ideas such as "benchmarking" and "global best practices" are not as valuable as they first appeared. They suggest that SME managers should emulate what people like Apple did when he was, say, 30 employees, rather than today when it is "the most valuable company in the world."

The enigma And You

So that's all this got to do with you and your small or medium business?

    Focus, Focus, Focus: decide the only thing you do well and work to get better and better than anyone
    Define your target market spend all - yes, all - your marketing budget for marketing your target market. Market to anyone else.
    Accept the fact that there's a lot you do not know: buy the best external expertise that you can afford in these areas you know little
    Beware of fads and fashions, especially if they emerge from the study of large companies. Look for things that have worked for companies around the same size as yours and Development
    You can not be everything to everybody: do not try
    Grow your business by doing what you do well even better, but do it for more people in your target market
    Arrogance is the enemy of successful business people and entrepreneurs. Just because you're the best driver on the planet, do not imagine for a moment that this entitles you to teach others to do the screwdriver or screw you
    Be careful when you change something that already works well for you. As the old saying goes, "The first person to get tired of the marketing slogan is the seller."
    If you pay other companies to provide service to your company, the same thing. There is always someone who will say, "We could do it ourselves just as well and save money." First of all, you will not "save money." Service will always cost when you provided internally. Secondly, if you are satisfied with the results you receive from outside, leave it in place and focus your efforts in the areas of your business that need to change and you know a lot of things.
    Beware of the views of those who say: "I know very well ..." Remember what Mark Twain said. Never accept "facts" without irrefutable evidence proving their existence.
    In case you do not know, John Wooden is considered one coaching basketball again. He chose not to bring in professional leagues. He spent a long career basketball coaching college with extraordinary success. He died in 2010 at the age of 99 years. If you think you "know it all", Wood suggests that you deliver. "Failure is not fatal, said Wood," but no change can be. "
    Surveying customers to find out what they want from new products simply do not work. When Henry Ford was asked why he did not investigate to find out what people wanted, he replied: "They wanted a faster horse." And Steve Jobs did not believe in surveying customers on new products.
    You run or help run a business. It is easy to lose sight of reality. "How does this benefit the business?" This is the question that always arises.

Trap technology

"The only constant is change" is an old adage that still applies. What this means is that iPads and iPhones and all the technology that we have become accustomed to just the last change. Technology simply allows us to do things more efficiently, more successfully, more quickly and at lower cost. This is not the alpha and omega. It is simply a superior tool. Use it wisely to improve your business. But do not dominate.

Business

Monday, November 26, 2012

Better Small-Medium Business: Wisdom From Mark Twain, John Wooden and The Aussie Outback

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