Main Idea
What are you good at? Can your business or organization be the best in the world at something? What is it? Or do you just need to survive? Should you sell anything at any price just to make a couple of dollars? What do you think about a company like Macy’s? What is it, a department store or a discounter?
Expansion of Idea
Over the holidays, I went into Macy’s at West County Mall to return some clothes for my son. The number of people in the mall and in Macy’s was overwhelming. I do not normally go through the newspaper ads and I did not realize that they were having sales at such low prices. It seemed like all of the clothing displays had signs saying 50-70% off. And I think there were some additional savings if you used the Macy’s card. The store has gone from a place where you could get nice things at a reasonable price to a pure discounter. It seems like most stores have not figured out where they add value and, therefore, they can only compete on price. Unless you are Wal-Mart and are set up to compete on price, this is a doomed strategy.
Most of us have not done the hard work in evaluating our businesses and determining the key areas to focus on. Until we get this right, we are going to continually lose market share, profits will evaporate, and we will see problems creep up in unusual places. We need to ask ourselves what we can be the best at in the world. What changes need to happen to accomplish that? (Next week I will introduce a couple of other things to consider as you move down this path.)
Suggested Areas to Start
Ask yourself these questions:
What is your business?
Who are you serving?
Are you really good or just average?
Can you improve?
Read the book “Good to Great”