At this point you may feel you know your path and can't wait to get going, or you may still feel fuzzy about it. Either way, it can help to put a clearer, more specific label on these alternatives. Paul Hawken offers a helpful list of suggestions for a new enterprise; test your ideas against it and see where they fit in:
1. Recreate Something That's Been Lost
The consolidation of any industry into a few giant organizations-the current massing of health-care services comes to mind-tends to leave gaps that customized delivery of similar services or products can often fill. Look around your community for signs of things people really miss about the way certain services or products were provided before the chain came to town.
2. Enhance the Commonplace
Find a very ordinary product and give it new life. Hawken's examples include a charcoal fuel dealer whose sales caught fire when it began to market its mesquite charcoal as a gourmet barbecue item; New York City's corner groceries that have undergone a renaissance since a few Korean immigrants demonstrated that previous vendors had become lazy about displaying their products attractively; and his own Smith & Hawken garden tools, which took a truly dull-as-dishwater product and made it compelling through informative marketing.
3. Raise the Ante
Instead of simply trying to meet the competition, go one better and never look back. PC Connection in tiny Marlow, New Hampshire, has grown from zero to $250 million-plus in annual sales in 14 years by pushing the service envelope. Customers can call as late as 3 A.M. and receive their computer accessories the same day, anywhere in the United States.
4. Reveal a Business within a Business
Hawkins' example: Chuck Williams of Williams-Sonoma, who took cookware out of hardware and department stores and put it on its own stage.
5. Restore a Business
Catch an outmoded enterprise that can be recast in a new light. Look at the recent emergence of family billiard parlors.
6. Be the Most Complete
Go deeper into a particular product or service line than anyone else. Sell 999 flavors of jelly beans or ice cream.
7. Be the Low-Cost Provider
Connect makers and buyers directly, cut your own costs to the bone and make room for spectacular volume at a paper-thin margin.
Be Creative
In applying these ideas to a selecting a specific enterprise, it's tough to underestimate the creativity component. You may have an idea that fits directly into one of the areas above, or it may blend two or more of the qualities. Either way, it should reflect creativity. Here are a couple of examples:
Peggy Reed Bennett of Wichita, Kansas, was at loose ends, unemployed and looking for a clever way to make her own way, when she hit on the idea of becoming a mystery shopper. Peggy actually hated shopping so much she figured she ought to get paid for it, so here's what she did: She wrote to a number of corporations, telling them she'd be willing to visit stores as a typical (and inquisitive) customer and report back to the company on the honesty, knowledgability and helpfulness of clerks, cleanliness of the store, and other impressions-intended or otherwise-that customers might receive from their company. The idea clicked.
Soon after, Peggy was doing work for Montgomery Ward, Sears, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Arby's, plus several local banks, car dealerships, furniture stores and garden centers. A typical workday might include going to the bank to get money from an account without a withdrawal slip or check; going for breakfast at Burger King, where she'd take food temperatures, time the speed of service and check the restroom for supplies; stop by the garden center to find out how much the new clerk had learned about flowering shrubs; and call several apartment complexes to see how their rental policies were being administered.
The variety was endless. Peggy's main challenge was coming up with enough disguises to keep clerks and sales people from figuring out who she was. She has since moved on to other kinds of work, but the business was sufficiently successful that she was able to sell it to someone who continues to do well at it.
Or, how about Christopher Leo and Kay Keane of Lagrangeville, NY. As they pondered one of the battles working parents fight day after day-how to get the kids everywhere they need to go without leaving work-they came up with Kids on the Go. It's "a taxi service parents can trust," and it's doing so well locally they're considering expanding it to other communities.
In fact, "being creative" is often carried out simply by being observant-checking out each scene around you for clues to success-and open to opportunities. Sometimes this means being willing to do things whose immediate payoff isn't clear but which could, with good fortune, be worthwhile.
"If I can possibly fit it in my calendar, I try to do anything and everything that might advance a career or business opportunity," says Gary Grappo. "I have had some of the most serendipitous experiences." An example: Gary agreed to do a book signing at an out-of-the-way bookstore where he'd be lucky to attract a handful of readers. Sure enough, about five people came, but among them was the bookstore chain's national sales manager, who set Gary up on a book tour of South America for which he was paid $2000 a day, plus expenses!
