“Income, Profit, Equity.” October 2009
Entrepreneurial Survival & Prosperity Demands Creativity
Throughout the last few decades, it’s been fascinating to be an entrepreneur.
When I spend a few minutes to remember my first capitalistic venture, I recall there was no public internet, only hints of some futuristic ‘information superhighway.’ Getting a fax machine was a big deal and I thought I was hot stuff with a killer 286 machine with a huge 40 meg hard drive.
Time has just flown by in ways that are truly hard to fathom.
I always knew that owning a business would be hard work and had no guarantees. I was willing to work hard and my family was willing to sacrifice for delayed gratification. The good times were fun, the hard times were tough but the entrepreneurial future was always hopeful.
This era is different. Business moves extremely fast. The idea of building a debt free business in years past was usually laughed at. Now, it’s no laughing matter. If your business is based on access to credit…and you can’t access credit…you are out of business.
There are no unrestricted stimulus checks coming to small business…and as far as I’m concerned it’s just as well. Free cash is never free and I’m not interested in having a small business czar telling me how to think and which George Orwell books to read.
So the question remains…how do we not only survive, but prosper?
The simple answer is creativity. No longer can we just wait out the market. We can’t simply ‘give it another go’ and see what happens. The stakes are too high. We need to forge high performance teams of thinking people, operating in our collective strengths and creating synergistic results.
I believe it’s time to look at new ways to serve the marketplace.
Suppose we actually look at traditional business models and begin to dissect them just like we’ve looked at our personal strengths. What are the strengths of current franchise models vs. corporate owned stores, how about retailing – storefront vs. virtual sales, direct face to face sales and telemarketing, traditional media marketing as opposed to social media & internet marketing?
There are an exponential number of permutations when it comes to business models and marketing…because the internet constantly creates new possibilities.
So how do you do it?
How can you become creative and prosperous without throwing caution to the wind? One thing’s for sure, I’m convinced that you can’t do it by yourself.
As an example, one of the companies we’ve worked with for over a year has a brilliant e-Commerce model. They combined a new online channel for retail consumer sales with network marketing and social media.
During initial formulation and testing in Europe back in 2003, they determined their customer acquisition costs were too high using internet and mainstream advertising. They decided to use MLM as a front end primer to educate consumers and fuel viral growth. What’s the result?
Unlike traditional MLM businesses that have virtually zero retail customers (because those models are usually wholesale consumption models driven by business opportunities), these guys have an over 80:1 customer to associate ratio. That’s what I call a creative solution to a business dilemma.
I must admit, initially I didn’t even want to consider their business proposal because I didn’t want to get anywhere close to network marketing…again. It took nearly 3 months before I would even have a discussion about their model. I was stuck in my old thinking about an old model.
FULL DISCLOSURE: My name is Steve … and I’m a recovering network marketer!
However, once I understood the model and the creative strategies that pulled the best of multiple business models and synergistically assembled them to solve a problem and create massive income, profit and equity, we at Stratworx decided to help them launch in North America.
That’s just one simple example of entrepreneurs coming together and using creativity to solve today’s business problems.
How can you apply this in your business?
Ask yourself this question: “What is the number one challenge I face for survival?”
Perhaps you can put a core team of people together from outside your industry and vendor mix and ask them to join you in an experiment…solving your biggest challenge.
Get some fresh ideas and do something novel to encourage them to help you. Maybe share your profits or invite them to join you on a cruise when the money is right…but please…do something creative.
Revolutionary Entrepreneurs are Creative!
Cheers,
Steve
Steve Olds
Founder and CEO
www.STRATWORX.com