A summary of things you should know about Do Less Better according to John R Bell: Introduction In this episode John R Bell takes a deep dive into his book,Read More
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]]>In this episode John R Bell takes a deep dive into his book, Do Less Better, where he explains why sacrifice in the right places cuts through complexity and clears the way to competitive advantage.
In his book Bell provides a tool-kit of road-tested strategies for keeping companies lean, creating cultures of innovation, and knowing when to expand and yet, remain streamlined. The goal of the book is to teach you how to “think smaller,” when everyone around you is firmly entrenched in the “do more” strategy in order to become more agile, adaptable, and resilient than your competitors.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are struggling to outweigh the competitors in their market and need a new yet effective approach to reinvent their current strategy.
It’s certainly not the first book on focus and nor will it be the last but I think the element that separates it from the rest is how people can successfully cut through complexity and achieve focus.
I’ve written it to flow as a beginning to end read and I think that will benefit every reader.
The most important takeaway is the fact that leaders and managers don’t have to keep doing more and more to be affective and successful. Doing less and doing it better is a viable strategy at all levels within the company.
I begin the book by establishing the breadth and depth of complexity, the fact that it’s pervasive. Complexity in business is a cancer that stifles and if you leave it unchecked it can bring a company to its knees so I establish that as the main problem. The other thing is that companies have chosen diversification as the means to grow and these seem to be the ones that suffer the most.
The second chapter I call The Steel and Steal of Strategic Sacrifice. The whole idea here is that the strategy is a steal because good strategies cost no more to develop than bad ones.
None of this happens without leadership so I move to a leadership chapter. It certainly helps when top management buys into the idea of doing less better and if top management does it can become the culture of the company.
From there we go into The Urgency for Action chapter. I suggest that it doesn’t matter whether you’re entrepreneurial or not, success comes from those who think like entrepreneurs. And until the digital age innovation was the way of the entrepreneur. Giant corporations have a habit of gobbling up competitors and dominating markets and in the process many of them have lost their competitive edge. I go through the reason for the complexity; I talk about the strategy being important and leadership leading the way.
Chapter six is for marketers but it will benefit every reader because I reiterate the power of differentiation and I titled this chapter KISS is not a Rock Band. If you want differentiation you have to ask yourself this question. What are you prepared to sacrifice to get it? You have to be prepared to give up a benefit or two or three.
That leads into branding which everyone knows is big business today and my chapter on it is about those who do it well and explains why others have lost their way.
Towards the end of the book I make it clear that there is more to clarity and coherence than cutting back product lines, markets, and projects. I make the point that coherent companies align every function and every aspect of their organization with their capabilities.
The last book is titled Regrets: I’ve had a few. In this chapter I share with the reader some of the regrets and mistakes I’ve made along the way so that you can learn from my mistakes.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 7:35
“20% of the new initiatives deliver 80% of the rewards. Choose carefully and you save money, reduce complexity, and ride the fastest race horses to the future. “- John R Bell
I am a retired CEO of a consumer packaged goods company that was sold to Kraft back in the 90’s. After the sell to Kraft I decided to become a management consultant and I did that until I retired about two years ago. By the time I hung up my hat I’d helped a couple dozen companies including Campbell Soup, Starbucks, and Interbrew. I love to write and still like to play games such as golf and tennis.
Earlier in my career I was faced with the challenge of turning around a near bankrupt company. This company had too many products, too many brands, and too many categories. So by closing or selling the majority of the brands we trimmed that company down to a shadow of its former self. We decided that we were going to be an expert in one category and at the time that happened to be coffee. By focusing on coffee and nothing else we were able to swim out of the raging river of red ink and we called that means to the end the do less better strategy. I describe that as the opposite of doing more with less or even doing more with more and that whole idea stayed with me for the rest of my career. So when I became a consultant I saw a similar pattern of unnecessary complexity in both troubled and successful businesses and I think today business complexity has reached pandemic proportions and there has never been a greater need for simplicity and focus.
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Buy Do Less Better by John R. Bell on Amazon today
Visit DoLessBetter.ca to learn more about the book and download a free chapter
Follow John R Bell on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Road to Reinvention by Josh Linkner
Aligning Strategy and Sales by Frank Cespedes
Invent Reinvent Thrive by Lloyd Shefsky
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]]>5 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Business Failure Now that you have started a new business, brace yourself for failure. Sounds a little pessimistic – doesn’t it? Well, every entrepreneur needsRead More
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]]>5 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Business Failure
Now that you have started a new business, brace yourself for failure. Sounds a little pessimistic – doesn’t it? Well, every entrepreneur needs to be prepared for the worst. Even super successful individuals such as Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Colonel Sanders, or Henry Ford didn’t succeed at their first attempt.
In fact, it took most successful entrepreneurs and leaders multiple attempts to reach their goals. What was the likely key to their ultra success? It’s their approach that differentiated them. As Edison summed it up – “I haven’t failed; I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work”.
But the question is – why do startups fail often? The reason is simple – you just don’t have the necessary experience to run a business. This leads you to make many mistakes, and soon they start to make a significant impact on your day. No planning, forgetting taxes, emotional pricing, wasting money on unnecessary details, and so on lead to trouble.
And if you don’t identify your mistakes and rectify them on time, you end up as a failure. But if you think it is the end of the road, you are seriously on your path to a letdown in your life. It is at this time that you need to think and act and turn your failure into success.
How do you do it? Here’s how I’ve learned that top entrepreneurs overcome business failure:
Switch to a positive mode
No, it doesn’t mean you try to fake a smile and look happy even when you feel down in the dumps. It implies that you treat your failure as a life lesson. Don’t fight it; embrace it. Only then you will be able to understand what an experience it was. Create a spreadsheet and write down what you did right and what you didn’t.
Appraise your assets
Be it an office space that you have leased or great relationships that you have created – don’t ignore their potential. Consider what worked splendidly for your startup – was it your employees, or, your certain client relations, or, your intellectual property? Draw up a chart to understand and evaluate your best assets.
Sell off whatever you can
Whether you want to give away your business or sell it, you need to get in touch with the right people. If you think that it may still work, keep a percentage in it. If not, just give it away to a new entrepreneur. If you decide to sell, don’t be shy; contact everyone you know to see who you can sell it off to.
Read up
Akio Morita began Sony selling a rice cooker. But it burned the rice. Yet, Sony is one of the best success stories of today. Fred Smith almost failed his business management course with his business idea. It later developed into FedEx. And good old Edison actually failed more than 9000 times before he made the light bulb.
Most importantly, start again
Now that you have failed, you have two choices – you can leave it and go back to where you were before you tried entrepreneurship. Or, you can get up, brush off the dust from your fall and tread along towards your next venture. And when you choose the second option, you will have the lesson you learned to guide you.
Success in business, quite similar to success in life, is not dependent on whether you make it at the first jump. It relies on whether you have the courage to get up and get going and make your failure just a stepping stone on your journey to success.
The Art of War for Small Business by Becky Sheetz-Runkle | Listen to my interview with Becky here
The Road To Reinvention by Josh Linkner | Listen to my interview with Josh here
Getting Things Done by David Allen | Listen to my interview with David here
Invent Reinvent Thrive by Lloyd Shefsky | Listen to my interview with Lloyd here
The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz | Listen to my interview with Mike here
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Road to Reinvention according to Josh Linkner Introduction In this episode, New York Times bestselling author, Josh Linker shares how criticalRead More
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]]>In this episode, New York Times bestselling author, Josh Linker shares how critical reinvention is for the health and stability of small businesses. In his book, The Road to Reinvention, Linkner takes you on a practical journey that breaks down an organization in six parts and gives you a systematic way to reinvent each of them. The Road to Reinvention is the perfect fit for entrepreneurs or small business owners who have businesses that are struggling to keep up and are on the verge of failure. Not only does Linkner discuss the reinvention of business, he also provides some keen guidance in reinventing yourself and your career in times of struggle.
There are a few things, one being I have been on the front lines of over 100 startups so I see how startups think and how they work. The other interesting difference is I talk a lot about my home town of Detroit. If Detroit can rise from the ashes and reinvent itself during challenging times, that is inspiring for all the readers as well.
I would want it to be that reinvention is mission critical but accessible. You don’t have to have tons of money or resources, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming but if you break it down into a systematic process it can be very accessible, very un-risky and very inspiring. I hope that people walk away feeling that they now have a practical toolset that they can apply immediately to their own life, to their own career to proactively craft their own future rather than just being subject to the work of someone else.
I start by making the case for reinvention. It’s hard because many of us feel uncomfortable with change, we become set in our ways and there is a myth that success is a permanent condition. In other words we have arrived at some level of success and that will last forever but really success is a temporary condition. Once we make the case of why reinvention is needed we talk about the reinvention ethos.
From there I take people on a very practical journey, one that breaks down organizations into six key areas. Product and service, how to reinvent your processes, how to reinvent your culture, your sales and distribution model and how to reinvent your customer experience. We break down an organization into several areas and help readers with very practical tools to reinvent those areas of their business.
The last two chapters we move in to personal reinvention and talk about how to reinvent your career. And how to reinvent yourself, how to reinvent personal attributes and be the person you want to be more so than the person you always were.
There are a couple concepts that are important, one of them is that so many people live their lives trying to play it safe only to discover that playing it safe is the riskiest move of all. On the other hand all of us have the tools within our reach to craft change in a meaningful way and to be part of a solution instead of just protecting the past.
I am a four-time entrepreneur who has started, build and sold four technology companies over the last 20 years. I currently run Detroit Venture Partners, a venture capital firm investing in early stage and tech companies. I am the author of two New York Times bestselling books, Disciplined Dreaming – A Proven System to drive Breakthrough Creativity and most recently, The Road to Reinvention.
I saw so many great brands fall and realized that they didn’t need to. They were once great organization that failed to reinvent. It’s one of the most common pitfalls and one of the easiest ones to fix. It’s about how to go about a proactive reinvention process on an ongoing base to make sure that your brand or you retain relevancy.
The Monk who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma
Buy The Road to Reinvention by Josh Linkner on Amazon today
Visit JoshLinkner.com for free creative resources, recommended readings, and inspirational quotes
Follow Josh Linkner on Twitter
Download the full transcript here
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Invent Reinvent Thrive by Lloyd Shefsky | Hooked: How To Build Habit Forming Products by Nir Eyal | One Simple Idea by Stephen Key
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Business Failure
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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