Once upon a time, business schools taught us classical marketing,
strategy, and sales models and defended those models with research and
case studies. For today's entrepreneurial leaders, those approaches may
do more harm than good.
Guy
Kawasaki's latest business handbook, "The Art of the Start--The
Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything," will
turn many traditional business growth strategies on their heads.
As
Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, a columnist for
Forbes.com, and legendary Apple Computer Fellow, Guy has played the role
of salesman, jewelry designer, venture capitalist, and computer
evangelist. Few leaders have re-invented themselves as many times as
Guy. His insights have helped launch successful startups such as
Tripwire, Bitpass, GuruNet, and Santa Cruz Networks.
In a
nutshell, Guy offers several strategies: Make meaning first; make money
second. Burn the crusty mission statements on the wall. Polarize your
market and let a thousand flowers bloom.
What does he really mean?
Leaders
who want to re-energize a fledgling corporate division, or want to
increase the odds of launching a successful startup cannot afford to
ignore this time-tested advice from Guy.
"Got Meaning?"
The
first "antique" startup strategy is over-dependence on wordy mission
statements. Guy pities (and ridicules) most mission statements that he
sees in the business plans that get submitted to Garage Technology
Ventures. Says Kawasaki; "Mission statements were originally meant to
be short and memorable; but end up looking more like 'mission
impossible.'
He prefers companies who instead create a mantra, and
use that mantra to drive innovation, hiring, marketing, and sales.
Powerful mantras contain no more than 4 words, and can be memorized
easily. Wendy's Restaurant is remembered for "Healthy Fast Food." Mary
Kay is "Enriching Women's Lives." Mantras are even beginning to
infiltrate the technology industry, which has been historically driven
by buzzword-heavy, self-centered mission statements: "Change Powered by
Cisco."
Guy asserts that any good mantra will fulfill one of these
criteria: It either increases the quality of people's lives, stops or
minimizes something that is not working in the world, or perpetuates
something that is good.
Love Thy Enemies
Guy believes that
polarizing the market will naturally happen in companies that love what
they offer. Says Kawasaki, "Just accept that certain clients will
absolutely agree with you, and that certain clients will absolutely
loathe your service no matter how you try to convince them otherwise."
The Toyota Scion is a classic example. Toyota expects very few buyers
over 30 years old to buy this vehicle. "You should strive for creating
great passion in a very specific market. Polarization is a much better
alternative than creating the dangerous position of creating a big
market of buyers who are ambivalent, or just don't care."
Market
polarization is a proven strategy in the technology marketplace. "You
don't get to be industry standard by appealing to everybody
immediately," says Kawasaki. As "Inside the Tornado" author and
technology marketing expert Geoffrey Moore recommends, recommends
identifying very specific niche markets first, and becoming the dominant
player. Then companies are in a position to determine how they can
penetrate additional markets.
On the other hand, Guy suggests that
companies remain open to brand new, untapped market opportunities.
Like it or not, new clients will buy new solutions, and stump even top
market segmentation experts. Guy recommends, "Let a thousand flowers
blossom. That's a good thing. Take the money!"
Sucking Down is a Good Thing
One
of Guy's favorite expressions when describing ways to penetrate
corporate accounts is to "suck down and suck across." He asserts that
too much time and sales training dollars are spent on getting to know
the Very Important Top Officers (VITO) in their accounts. Sales teams
are often over-investing their time trying to suck up to C-level
executives while ignoring many lower ranking influencers.
Guy's
"Making Rain" chapter shares my personal story of how I sold $334,000
worth of enterprise software to a large Miami insurer. I owe much of
my success to the time I spent working with Armando, the top level Data
Base Administrator-the man who occupied the smallest cubicle and the
carried most influence with the CIO.
