Identifying Your “Best Buy”
Identifying and understanding what your main product or service is will allow you to spend every moment of your day doing what you do best.
Hurricane Season is well upon us here in the United States. The effects of the first major storm of the year, Hurricane Harvey, are still being felt in Houston, Texas. Tragedies such as these tend to bring out the extremes in human behavior. These events bring together communities and expose all the good in the human race. Unfortunately, bad behaviors and acts tend to expose themselves during these times as well. Today, we’ll highlight an example of the bad!
Best Buy Story
A Best Buy store in Houston found itself amidst a storm of controversy after a picture was taken in the store of bottled water being sold during the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. Signs advertising the water showed selling prices as high as $42 per case! Allegations of price gouging quickly ensued. For the whole story click here.
When I saw this story, one question immediately came to mind:
“Why is Best Buy, an electronics store known for selling computers, phones, and all things technology, selling water?”
Good to Great
This question stems from a lesson I learned years ago in one of my all-time favorite books, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. In the book, Collins makes a point to emphasize the importance of a company focusing on doing what drives it’s economic engine. This important truth highlights the importance of subtracting — eliminating the waste in and around your company.
Let’s tie this back into the Best Buy example.
Best Buy Water Sales?
If you were to look at the end of year financial records for Best Buy, a billion dollar retail corporation; I bet you would be hard pressed to identify the amount of revenue they bring in from their annual sales of bottled water. In fact, I would be willing to bet this amount is so minuscule that it isn’t even recorded!
Best Buy has no business selling water. That’s not what their company is about. That’s not what they are known for! In the example above, whomever made the decision to put out the cases of bottled water was reacting to the environment instead of sticking to their core products and services.
Identifying Your “Best Buy”
Now, this story is an exaggeration but nonetheless highlights the importance of the message we want to leave you with. What drives your economic engine? What is it you do better than anybody else? In addition, what things are you doing that you aren’t the best at? What do you need to subtract?
You may realize that you’re selling bottled water when you have no business doing so. If you find this to be the case, reexamine your vision, mission, and core values.
Let’s Ride!
Dr. Nathan Unruh, CXO SIDECAR
