It is human nature to work hard to improve. The challenge may determining where to apply your efforts. If you focus on your most important actions, you will make progress. However, every entrepreneurial marketer knows the juicy opportunities, the ones that nobody is presently serving, lie within the gaps between the worn out ruts of everyday commerce.
Opportunity always exists in those hidden areas that others have not exploited. Financiers understand that when margins get fat, there is an opportunity to exploit them. Even practitioners of meditation understand the goal is to find the space between the conditioned and ordinary thoughts, because it is there that you will tap into original thoughts. It just takes a new perspective – looking with fresh eyes.
When I actively participated in triathlons, I trained like a crazy man. In a single week I would swim up to a dozen miles, run up to fifty, and bike well over a hundred miles. While I made progress in my race results, my easiest and most sustainable progress occurred when I discovered the opportunity between the swim, bike, and run legs of a triathlon. These are referred to as the transitions. You have to change gear at each transition and engage the next activity as quickly as possible, while your muscles ache with fatigue and your focus is dulled — and the clock is running.
So, I started to measure my transitions. They were a little over a minute each. That's not a lot of time, but each second counts. And in our ultra-competitive business environment, profits are like those seconds. They all count. The swim to bike transition in a triathlon involves putting on your required safety helmet, attaching the strap, getting into shoes and securing them, and safely getting onto the bike, which has to be pulled out of the rack with sweaty hands, and tired feet that are prone to mashing a gear and throwing the chain off. Plus, if you are wearing a wetsuit during the swim leg to increase your buoyancy and swim speed, you also have to remove that first. This all takes time, and one misstep adds 10-20 valuable seconds to that minute it takes when it all works well.
My discovery was that with practice, I was able to take that unproductive time and reduce it by an amazing 70%. Those are valuable seconds! When you are already at peak physical condition, reducing your swimming or running time by 45 seconds is huge. And to think you can alternatively accomplish this just by studying, planning, and arranging your equipment in new ways to minimize unnecessary actions. Yes, the easy gains were within the spaces between the activities where we all of us typically focus our efforts. In short, I realized that following the herd was leading me nowhere.
Where are your transitions and spaces? Where are you mindlessly following the herd? Where can you refocus your sales and marketing efforts to reach customers and build the those bulletproof relationships we all value so highly? If you don't take a hard look , your competitors eventually will. And as we know, the prize usually goes to the leader, who will always remain ahead of the pack.
Are you blogging now? Are you actively using social media to complement your mainstream marketing methods? I work with clients in many diverse industries, ranging from contracting, publishing, commodities, and healthcare. In each one, we've identified a gap. These gaps are easy to find, but it takes work to realize the results.
We all cling to habits and tend to stay on the path that used to lead us to productive results – but that now pulls us straight into a rut. But you don't see the rut because you have been there so long you have become comfortable with it. You indeed have your blinders on.
Consider being the one that finds and exploits the gaps in your industry to achieve more with less effort. First you have to explore your business processes. My suggestion is to write out the steps of your best efforts – your home runs, your huge successes. Then seek to trim and refine your process. Find the gap between where you are now and where you can comfortably own your market and those customers that are ideal for you. I guarantee if you look you will find that space – and within it, the the opportunity for growth.
Photo Credit: ant.photos
Jeff, nice combination making connection between getting into ruts, doing the same old stuff and the need to identify and exploit your work processes.
Too few businesses ever define and or are alert to adapting their processes. That puts them at a disadvantage when faced with new technology (such as SM marketing opportunities) or even noting changes in their everyday business. They find about what’s new by reading about others’ successes.
By not having adaptive processes, they begin in a very competitive groove which over time, as the groove gets more deeply ingrained, becomes a rut. As the walls of the rut get higher, there’s little seen beond those walls, and competitiveness is lost.
Only by being alert to possibilities, by reviewing both new opportunities and current operations, and constantly improving will they find as you nicely put it, their “opportunity for growth.” Good job.
John – This post was actually inspired by a client that has well developed processes, but wants to continue to grow to dominate their market. That’s what made me think of triathlons, where you are pushing the limits to get even a tiny edge.
As you point out, somehow developing the perspective for continuously being alert to possibilities is what separates the winners from the other players in the game.
Glad you enjoyed!