Money might not buy happiness, but it can sure solve a lot of problems in your business. Money is the fuel that spurs growth, and it is the driver behind creating effective systems that will ultimately make your business a self-sustaining enterprise (i.e. an enterprise that will run profitably even if you largely remove yourself from the equation).
Don’t think that’s possible? Think again. Look at a company like Procter & Gamble. It has been around for hundreds of years, and it has existed successfully and profitably despite having many, many different people at the helm.
How do they do it?
Think Of The Long-Term
Not long ago the Wall Street Journal ran a story about Procter & Gamble’s $100 million study that basically sought to determine the emotions experienced by women on “bad hair days.” One . . . Hundred . . . Million . . . Dollars! Does that make sense on any level?
It absolutely makes sense, assuming that Procter & Gamble is thinking of the marginal profits it can earn from understanding emotions over the next 100 years. If you take the very long-term picture out of the equation, however, it would seem like an insane bet on the part of P&G.
Your Own Lab
You probably don’t have $100 million to spend on studies that won’t turn profitable for the next 50 years, but you do have an advantage: You’re small and nimble. That means that you can afford to build your war chest of capital by investing in many small micro-experiments until you hit on a profitable idea. This applies if you already have a business, and it applies equally if you are in the start-up phase.
For example, if you sell a physical product, you can experiment with advertising that product in trade magazines targeted to your ideal customer. You can hone the advertisement, its placement, and the actual media channels until you hit on a concept that consistently yields a return of 5 times your investment. Once you achieve that level of return, set the advertisement on auto-pilot and begin developing a new campaign to run in parallel to the existing strategy.
By creating a marketing lab in this fashion, you’ll be able to achieve what Procter & Gamble seeks to achieve, but on a very small scale. That’s a sure path to success. By emulating a market (and marketing) leader, you can differentiate yourself in the eyes of consumers in a way that will be unrecognized by them.
And That’s The Point
The idea is to test and test and test until you hit on your customers’ subconscious psychological triggers. When you do that successfully, customers will be drawn to your products and services. That’s what P&G does better than anyone. By working to fully understand the subtlest emotions associated with a bad hair day, P&G can effectively market to consumers without the consumers realizing what’s happening. That is a recipe for profitability!
The Parents Estate Planning Law Firm, PC
