“No matter what business you’re in, to thrive you must fight the presumption that you know your customer.” As soon as you claim to “know your ideal customer” you’ve lost. You no longer try to impress, you develop a standard operating procedure, you try and stream line your operation at the detriment of your customer. […]
Today’s business quote of the day comes from one of the best books I’ve ever read on innovation and entrepreneurship. Even though the quote is widely applicable regardless of the context, I’ll provide you some. Author Eric Ries is discussing businesses and entrepreneurs who spend their time keeping their strengths, discoveries, and prototypes behind a curtain, making tweaks based on speculation and delaying going to market. Ries explicitly states that in today’s business world, this will not give you the competitive advantage you’re looking for. The only way be a market leader is to learn faster than your competition. The best way to do this is to go to market, get feedback, and make rapid improvements.
Full Quote: “A head start is rarely large enough to matter, and time spent in stealth mode-away from customers-is unlikely to provide a head start. The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.” – Eric Ries
i. Everyone’s connected.Business strategy traditionally came from the smartest people in the room, the executive team, the bosses and when they needed help they turned to incredibly expensive consultants to build a brilliant foolproof plan. Everyone at the top laughed all the way to the bank. If the plan failed it was the consultants fault, if the plan succeeded it was the executives’ idea all along. Rarely does centralized, autocratic, command and control leadership work anymore. Read more
“There is no such thing as getting more than you put into anything.”
I love this quote, it’s attributed to Kim Nicolaides, I read it in Julien Smith and Chris Brogan’s new book called The Impact Equation. I’m about half way through and have been highlighting in my Kindle a lot. It’s like the no bullshit guide to marketing your company and yourself.
“Well, no matter what your stance, it’s the process of starting that matters. Starting once, on any given day, is easy. Starting every single day is hard, but it’s how your media will be created, how your book will get written, and how your empire will be built. As Kimon Nicolaides once said, “There is no such thing as getting more than you put into anything.” In other words, the work creates the results. There are no shortcuts.”
There’s no easy way about it. It takes a lot of hard, pain-in-the-ass work to accomplish anything amazing. You don’t just wake up one day and have a well read blog, huge Twitter Following or massive Facebook page, you wake up every morning and try to improve just a little bit. Being persistent, doing the work, and constantly improving, in time you’ll have created a masterpiece.
We all have the choice to do the work or not.
It’s very simple for anyone today to educate themselves on just about anything they could dream of. On Amazon, a simple search under any topic will bring up a list of books and more importantly the average rating people gave each book. Find the top rated books in whatever category interests you, buy the top ten rated, read them, boom instant genius.
Well it’s not quite that easy but you know what I mean. If you don’t read regularly find a way to do it, read in bed before you fall asleep, maybe go to the bathroom more at work and bring a book with you, read at the gym on the elliptical (two birds with one stone) where ever you can, do it. It’s one of the easiest ways to get smarter.
Here’s a list of mine from this past year, all of them on the list except for a few were outstanding. Tweet me (@JephMaystruck) if you want more details or if you have a question on a specific book. Read more