small business gurus - the blog of Cat & Keith Matson

by Cat Matson

One of the things that drives me nuts is ‘gurus’ offering magic bullet solutions for business success.  You know what I mean –“just handle your systems, then your business will be awesome”, or “hire the right staff and you’ll never have to worry again” or my favourite, “our 25-point system will make even the most challenged businesses thrive”.

There is no magic bullet for business success.  There is no 'one-size-fits-all' system for creating a successful business.  Success in business requires trial and error to discover what works for you and then consistent, persistent effort.

Most reasonable business owners know this… the problem is, even the most reasonable of business owners can become quite irrational after months and months (or even years and years) of challenges.  So they look around them for ideas, strategies or techniques that could work.  The problem is the techniques that are working for other businesses are working as a result of their unique combination of resources, people, customers, expertise and operational context.

So instead of magic bullets, I encourage business owners to look for generalised principles (principles that are true in all cases)…. then apply those principles to their particular context.

Having a Strategy is generalised principle – your chosen strategy though will be different to your competitors.  Strategy is NOT about a complicated plan, it’s a foundational choice about how you will approach your market and the environment.  When Virgin Blue decided to be Australia’s low cost airline, they had to structure their entire business in a way that enabled them to deliver low-cost flights.

A Marketing System is also a generalised principle of business – marketing that supports your chosen strategy and consistently generates desired leads.  Also a sales system, HR system and administration systems – all these systems are required in your business…. how they work for you depends entirely on your business model, strategy and context.

We want magic bullets because we want certainty – trial and error scares us because it’s uncertain.  So think of trial and error as ‘market research’ (not failure); after-all, Edison successfully found 1,000 ways that didn’t work, before creating the light-bulb.

Cat

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