Friday Afternoon

It's Friday afternoon, the snow is falling and a number of our contacts/cohorts have knocked off for the rest of the afternoon. After working through the entire 'used' and 'wanted' Administration sections, we've put together a 'Top 3' hit list to be ironed out in the coming 2 weeks (or before the Christmas Break hits and everyone's though flee the office and retreat into the relative peace of family life and holiday food). Growing your business and expanding your business model to incorporate new/additional facets is one of the enjoyable parts of being the boss--you can see and try to respond to the data that you get from the marketplace; make the changes necessary to deal with the ongoing flow of new information while still adhering to your core plan and philosophy.

Marketing and timing. At the end of the day, it's all about marketing and timing. You can build the best mousetrap in the world, but if you don't sell it, you won't sell it. Further, you can promote a product until you're blue in the face, if the market isn't ready for it, no-one will buy. Edison waving a lightbulb on a streetcorner in 17th century England is a great hypo- of a product that's too early. Xerox Lab's GUI innovations in the 1960's were an example of a brilliant set of products that were left unmarketed, unpromoted and hence, unsold.

How does that all tie together? By listening to many threads in many targeted marketplaces, an organization builds up a pile of domain knowledge, hard-earned wisdom as my Grandfather would say, that gives clues as to what those marketplaces want and when they are ready for it. There aren't any neon signs yelling out 'X customers want product ABC and they want it in 6 months.' The job of a company's leader is first to read the environment, second to be correct in the majority of the critical decisions that he or she faces--both in the choices and in when to make the decision, and third to motivate the company to execute on those decisions. If you're wrong on any of those 3 steps, you're out of business. If you're right, then you live to fight another day--with a smile and a flock of happy employees and customers.