Business Flexibility

Posted on 09. Jun, 2009 by Craig Killick in Business, Marketing & Sales

A few business models have come into my awareness in the past few weeks. Like this logo design company and this guy applying Photoshop filters to photos and selling them back as canvases. Both aren’t ‘the right way’ of doing it according to many of the people I speak to. Why is this? Not highbrow enough?

To me, they both sell a product that has a market: A market that may not have even been there five years ago. I’m not saying these two are both good business models – they are just different.

Selling to the market

Last week, I spoke with a commercial litho printer about his workload and current trading. We spoke about how he could leverage a platform like Twitter by repackaging his traditional product. Rather than one-off jobbing, why not take a risk and sell space on four-colour print-runs, or even auction them? It doesn’t play to his current business model, but it plays to the marketing platform and could create a new stream of revenue.

Sometimes you just have to redefine your market… or THE market.

Look at how Apple redefined the way we buy music and how they are changing the mobile phone market rapidly with a device which is so customisable that the phone part is becoming rather small.

Or what about Easyjet and Ryan Air? Love them or hate them, they have changed the way people buy flights by selling at a very low cost and then adding supplements, rather than an “all in” cost.

My own challenges

When I take a look at my own business I can see the changes coming… and coming. What I can also see is that the the guys that were the new different five years ago are still that same different now, so it also gives me hope in terms of my own flexibility.

Some examples please Craig:

• When we first started The Escape 12 years ago, 70% of our revenue was print. It’s now about 10%
• Cost of entry into the design business allows for thousands of freelancers with a lot less overheads. The web gives them the opportunity to market just as hard as our business. These guys are competition not to be overlooked.
• In 2006, we spent six months developing an e-commerce solution. You can download Open Source products for free that do the same thing. These will constantly improve, so do I need the extra development cost or people who can develop within this solution?
• Three years ago SEO was a bit of an unknown. Now, there’s even a dummies guide.

I could go on but I guess you get the point.

Me, I always remind myself that sometimes the safest bet may seem the riskiest at the time.

Tags: Business, innovation, marketing