niche shifting

November 16, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off 

Does having a niche to target increase the SoLo professional service firm’s likelihood of success? Disclaimer: I don’t have a niche. I’ve never had one although I’ve tried. In fact I seem to add niches on at least a quarterly basis. Some niches I try on (RedShift Art is a recent example) and then drop if they don’t feel right.

Just about anything and everything you read by marketing consultants, B-schools, and most entrepreneurs will not only say definitively “yes” to the niche, but insist its a top requirement, and if missing, well, then nobody will ever find you or buy from you or understand your business, products or services. All valid points and I’ve experienced the downside.

But in my experience the “no-niche upside is pretty good, including:

  • cross-learning potential for you, your business, your clients, your clients’ customers
  • different programs and services (with commonalities) for different markets (with commonalities) means greater reach for the global microbrand
  • easier to differentiate your business
  • ongoing creative development potential for the easily-bored generalist

My psf looks like this. Note: its not about randomly jumping on any business that presents itself. Just the opposite. I’d describe it as a professional service provider niche-model: a core concept, multiple programs, many markets, strong global microbrand.

niche shift.png

UPDATE 11/20/07
David Brooks writes today about The Segmented Society and how musician Steven Van Zandt counters the endless drive to segmentation and niches by teaching diverse music appreciation courses to diverse audiences. Bravo Little Steven.

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recycling the same old same old

November 16, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off 

Guy Kawasaki’s great post, In Search of Inexperience, provides a good rationale for why growing tech companies should consider candidates other than previously successful entrepreneurs for top management positions. It reminded me of a recent conversation with an executive of a major foundation that funds non-profits. We agreed that the leadership vacuum was a major problem.

When I asked her about the profile of the candidate likely to be hired, she responded that its likely a former executive retiring from the private sector who now wants to do something new and “make a difference”. I asked her how that worked out and she replied rather forlornly: not very good. No surprise. They bring the old ways, the old friends and colleagues, the old systems and structures, and the old attitudes, beliefs and perceptions with them. They probably won’t embrace uncertainty or chaos or challenge what they “know”.

In my work with executive clients I’m continually seeing the same paradox: extreme shortage of talent while great people languish or go out on their own.

leadership_gap_demographic.png

Hopefully, companies in both sectors (the lines are increasingly blurred) will begin hiring more creatively but that will require a new kind of leadership, a self-aware and ego-less leadership. On that topic, Dale Dauten quotes Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great”: the best-performing leaders are the quiet, humble ones. High-profile braggadocio is out.

In the meantime, the leadership vacuum grows, hiring practices remain in the dark ages, the investment money languishes, and we all lose.

(Via How to Change the World.)

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Restaurants and Gangsters: Looking for Change in All the Wrong Places

November 3, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off 

It doesn’t surprise me that 37Signals, one of my favorite companies, and author(s) of Signal vs. Noise, one of the few blogs that I religiously read and recommend, raves about the same makeover show that I love and that I’ve blogged about. (Personally, I prefer the original BBC version of Kitchen Nightmares. Its not as edgy or extreme, but for me, it has more humanity than the American show.)

I have little overtly in common with 37 Signals although I am a small customer and hope to be a bigger one. I’m not a software developer or tech guru, yet their philosophy continually inspires me. It comes down to a similar way of looking at the world, seeing links and patterns in seemingly disparate media, and then putting it together for a new perspective that hopefully leads to positive change.

After seeing American Gangster yesterday, I won’t be surprised if some of my favorite bloggers are as blown away as I was by Denzel Washington’s lecture to Cuba Gooding about the promise of the Blue Magic powder (a.k.a. heroin) brand and how that brand promise must not be diluted. The fact that its so incongruous (murderous fiend drug lord to murderous fiend drug lord on the brand promise) is what makes it stick. Also, its a perfectly communicated pitch: spare, succinct, simple, passionate and business jargon free.

What Gordon Ramsay can teach software developers: “

In Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay does make-overs on failing restaurants and turns them into respectable enterprises through a combination of cuisine guidance, managerial pruning, and loads of swearing when things fail to meet his standards.

It’s a fantastic show that gives grim insight to the scary state of affairs of the chosen spots, but it also goes beyond the schadenfreude and saves these places from going out of business.

What makes Ramsay’s approach to restaurant revamping so interesting, though, is how applicable it feels to software design. The characteristics of a failing eatery ring remarkably similar to those of a poorly-run software product:

(Via Signal vs. Noise.)

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Leverage this!

November 3, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment 

You won’t learn this in B-school or from career advice articles, but its important for the independent professional service firm to know how to deal with the “leveragers”. These are people who want or need your knowledge and creative talents and assets, but they devalue them and will go to great lengths to get them for free, or for less.

They can show up in different forms. I call them the bottom feeder, tire kicker, brain picker, carrot dangler.

The Four Types of Leveragers

The Four Types of Leveragers

A bad experience with a leverager can help you recognize and release a hidden belief in what you don’t want. An example is: “I have to take whatever business I can get”. It can also provide an opportunity to exchange that old belief for one that you do want. An example is: “I have complete trust in, and alignment with, my clients who value my work and honor our relationship”. There’s really no good reason why you should overpay by giving away your time, energy and creativity.

It can be discouraging and disheartening to get caught up with a leverager. If it happens to you, don’t be hard on yourself. You’re learning discernment – what to say “yes” to and what to say “no” to. Its most important to radically trust your instinct. But although I’m a firm believer in expecting and preparing for successful client engagements, I do recommend adhering to the following:

  • Don’t start projects without a deposit.
  • Get progress payments agreed to up front and stop work if they are not met.
  • Determine how much time you will give for a work sample or pre-sales consultation; use a timer.
  • Set up a credit card payment option.
  • Get brain pickers and tire kickers out of your life by billing them; you’ll never hear from them again.
  • If a client continually changes and adds to the scope and it starts to feel like a ploy – stop. Walk away even if you are owned money. Its unlikely you can turn around a client who is intent on a win-lose scenario or whose business model justifies your overpaying in emotional energy or creativity.
  • If you withdraw from an engagement, do so firmly, but peacefully and with respect for your client, and their good qualities that drew you to them. Separate fact from emotion even if the client cannot, or will not.
  • Don’t sign over-complicated or highly restrictive contracts.

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