Over the past few weeks the IntelliThink LLC team has been working with several business owners at various stages of the business lifecycle. One thing really sticks out. When you are focused one doing one thing and doing it well, you are more engaged in the business. When all of your eggs are in a single basket you tend to focus quickly.
Unfortunately most business owners cannot afford to be a one shot wonder. Success is recognizing where each product or service is at in its life expectancy and putting in place the extension, refresh or replace strategies. Success is also based on making each product or service the best it can be. No one wants to buy a poor product. If you can complete victory in one area people will believe you can perform in other areas as well.
Our friends at the Innovation Engineering Network have developed a tool to assist you Do One Thing Great. Here is how it works:
Step One – Create a list of your core products or services down the side of a piece of paper. Each product or distinct set of features should be a separate line item.
Step Two – Take one line item to an extreme. In other words think what would be the consequence if you took the product benefit to an outrageous outcome. Complete orders in 40% less time. Results in 30 minutes. Five times faster.
Step Three – Now ask: What if we really focused and —. You take the extreme outrageous outcome and focus time and energy brainstorming and documenting your thoughts on how to achieve the outcome. What would or could you do to process and complete orders in 40% less time. What would the benefit be? What would need to change? How would the process change? Can our systems handle the change? Capture the information and all of the ideas generated.
Step Four – Play What-if with the staff. Explain each idea to the team and have them help identify enhancements to make the idea even stronger. In addition, take time to identify potential roadblocks with each idea. You will want to take each roadblock and develop plans to mitigate or eliminate them.
Now you have a series of fresh ideas targeted to a specific bold outcome. By spending time exploring how to be great, you begin to unleash the innovative thinking of the organization. Take this momentum and be great at all the things you do.
Do One Thing Great – takes time and focus. You will never be great if you do not start.