On June 7th, Seth Godin penned another excellent piece on Harvesting. To summarize, Seth hits on the fact that starting, running and developing a business takes time and a huge amount of effort; and at the end of the day, when you have toiled and perspired, you should be able to harvest the opportunity. Furthermore, he states that most markets are not harvestable and provided a few points to help us identify markets that rock. Here is the list:
- Word spreads. You want a market where stories of your success and reputation will reach other prospects.
- Needs are similar. You want a market where the skills you developed to help one person can also be used to help another person.
- Budgets exist. You want a market where there is more than one player with money to spend (on you) to solve a problem.
- Barriers exist. The market should reward insiders (like you) but make it really difficult for copycats to come in, steal, share and lower prices.
- Price should rise with value delivered. As your work spreads and your reputation increases, you should be able to charge more, not less.
First off I am a big fan of Seth’s work, check out my I Am A Fan Of… section, but this piece could really be expanded for folks already committed to lesser markets. Let’s face it, not everyone can build companies and/or work in great industries. So how could people who are already committed to lesser markets/industries employ some of the elements in their field to build a relatively “harvestable” venture?
- Spread the word yourself or enlist others to do it for you: two words: social media, get with it
- Build as much automation into your processes as you can, if you run a small shop and are trying to grow the business but don’t have time to train new employees effectively use some tool to record the training once so newbies can refer to your multimedia manual if they get stuck and will not have to bother you.
- Diversify your revenue base with small ventures outside your present offering but complimentary to your core business. Growing your business is always risky so make sure you have an effective plan before you begin this process.
- Build your own barriers, have customers rely on you for reliable and timely service, build some personality into your offering, stand out from the crowd and again provide great customer service throughout the process. Differentiate yourself from the rest in your industry. Educate consumers on what they should expect. This will allow you to create a barrier – a higher standard expected by consumers. This is also tricky but to be successful you must be able to deliver.
Are you in one of those industries that has all of items listed by Seth. If not how do you plan to build a “harvestable” venture in your field?
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