Life Lesson

The most important component of the business plan is the potential market size.

Without confidence and facts in there being a market available to you – and a sizeable one to support not only the sustaining of your business but the growth and development of it too, then everything else is either an uphill battle or waste.

This is the problem with marketing driven organizations. They market regardless of the market capture rate.

On the other hand, this is where the success lies in market driven organizations. They market where the need is, where the volume is, where the share is.

You can argue that there is a vast sea of potential customers… you can design the best rod and reel and lure… you can situate boats and fishers across the entire water… and you can use GPS that tells you there are fish under the water – but, and this is the big but: if they’re not hungry…

Figuring out if fish are hungry (and then figuring what they are hungry for) isn’t easy, but it’s essential if you plan to run a thriving business.

Stay Positive & Start There, Then Cast Your Net

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What if Facebook goes down for the day?

What if MailChimp goes down for two weeks?

What if your website crashes for a few days?

Scenario planning doesn’t need to stop with the digital space either.

What if your staff all call in sick?

What if the power goes out?

Turns out it helps to build a brand assuming the tools you’ll use won’t work.

Because the fact is sometimes they won’t.

Best to not make the tool your business model.

Stay Positive & Find Your Foundation

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Rather than surprise and delight, consider giving them snacks to delight on.

Add things in that give a little chuckle, something they can share, heck, it might even be actual snacks in the packaging.

The little things matter and they often make a longer-lasting impact than the big things.

Stay Positive & Snack-sized

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How can a brand be generous? After all, it’s vital for any kind of loyalty, any kind of magic, any kind of meaningful change.

Generosity can be giveaways, free samples and freebies, but the generosity that really impacts is the spirit and soul of generosity.

Generosity is both a personal and shared experience.

Generosity is working in a way that’s a role model for others. Generosity is working in a way that gives to your employees (because you know the better you treat your team, the better the team treats your customers and the better your customers treat your business). Generosity is about adding value where there was none (regardless of whether you charge for it or not).

Generosity is the idea that things can always be better and every day is spent finding the truth in that.

And one quick reminder of why generosity works? It’s rare. It’s scarce. Your competitors aren’t doing it.

There’s no blueprint or map to generosity; it comes from within.

Stay Positive & It’s On You To Map It Out

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If you’re being asked a work-related question, magic often happens when you don’t respond.

People figure it out.

People find elsewhere to find the reassurance.

People assume agency and keep things moving.

You don’t have to respond to everything the second you get it.

Magic happens for you when you don’t, too.

There’s mental space for ideas to form.

There’s focus on what’s in front of you.

There’s freedom from the weight of feeling like you are truly needed.

That is the goal of a leader: to inform and empower others to not need you; so you can move to the next space that people need you, and so on.

Stay Positive & Give It 15 Min Before Responding

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If it’s standard size, there’s bound to be some efficiencies.

It’s also likely that whatever is standard size, is familiar and fit for the masses.

The problem is that no one ever talks about anything that’s the standard size.

The larger problem is thinking that there are more people who want standard size than there actually are.

On the flip side: something that’s not the standard size is sure to be talked about (damn Costco carts are huge… dang this business card is cool… and so on) and it’s also a smarter business move because the age of the masses isn’t as easy to connect with as it once was; different people want different things.

The long tail cares about non-standard size; they care about the size that fits them specifically, and the people like them, too. They want a size that makes them feel seen.

Stay Positive & Start Looking

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Rationale goes, once they know what you know, they’ll decide what you decide, choose what you would choose, buy what you would buy.

But that’s not how it works, as any solid marketer knows.

Quite the opposite actually.

One you know what they know, the story they are telling themselves, the value they see you’re offering, then you can help give them what they’ve already chosen.

More listening. Less telling.

More story. Less statements.

Stay Positive & Market On

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