sneezr.ca

This is long so feel free to skip it.

A few hours ago, I received an interesting feedback/question from a person who recently purchased a copy of my ebook Are you a Sales Phobic?. “Why don’t more people use your simple guide to customer touch points as a tool with which to orchestrate their marketing efforts?,” this person asked.

First, the long answer—have you ever heard Clayton Christensen’s story about mini steel mills?
(A quick reminder: Clayton wrote a famous book titled The Innovator’s Dilemma.*)

Clayton has told it thousands of times. Here’s a little taste of how he retold it recently (this account was recorder in a recent article in the New Yorker):

“For those of you who haven’t made a lot of steal, historically there are two ways to make: Most of the world’s steel has been made by massive integrated steel companies. The other way to do it is to build a mini mll. In a mini mill, you melt scrap in electric furnaces, and you could easily fit four of them in this room. The most important thing about a mini mill is that you can make steel for twenty per cent lower cost than you can make it in an integrated mill. Now imagine you’re the C.E.O of a steel company somewhere. In a really good year, your net profit will be two to four per cent. Here is technology that would reduce the cost of making steel by twenty per cent. Don’t you think you’d adopt it? And yet not a single integrated steel company, anywhere in the world, built a mini mill. Today, all but one of the integrated mills have gone bankrupt. So here is why something that makes consummate sense can be impossible for smart people to do.”

Now, the short answer to the question: “why don’t more people use your simple guide to customer touch points as a tool with which to orchestrate their marketing efforts?” Because it’s very difficult to accurately assess your own weaknesses, and then go about improving them systematically.

My 2¢:
Successful business owners know that even a single consultation can help them un-clutter ideas for clear direction. Case in point: Andy Grove, back when he was the CEO of Intel, brought Clayton in and his counsel helped Intel sustain its success (they introduced the Celeron chip).

But here’s the kicker: Many business owners don’t hire consultants.
They take the “do-it-yourself” route.
And sometimes those who take the “do-it-yourself” route get lucky. Everything works out well.
Often, however, the ending’s a little different. Because it’s very difficult to accurately assess your own weaknesses, and then go about improving them systematically. It’s easy to forget that.

July 13, 2012

*There are many lessons one might take from this remarkable book. Here’s one: Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world.