It’s sometimes said that the essence to establishing a successful strategy is deciding what is that you’re NOT going to do. Any executive running an organization or enterprise, whether Fortune 100 all the way down to solopreneur, faces choices that have to be made. That would be the “executive” part of the role.
While some choices can be easy, some might are very difficult to make, especially when they will clearly have a significant effect on the future of the business. When you don’t have the luxury of time or resources to run a proper market research study (and I’m not going to get drawn in this post on the utility of that, particularly for small, nimble, startup-scale companies), it can be an excruciating process when all the choices seem good. Which path to take? Which to abandon? When your enterprise can legitimately execute on paths A, B or C, but is only able to pick one, the stakes are inordinately high.
And so it was, as it happens, for FeedBlitz at the end of 2013. We had several directions that we could invest in that would make various market sectors more successful and power our continued growth. The last thing we wanted to do was try to do them all – that’s a recipe for disaster – but as a team we were finding ourselves somewhat confounded. There weren’t any bad choices, but we had to choose.
So Heather and I found ourselves at #NMX just over a week ago wrestling with these decisions. We didn’t resolve anything, and on the second day of the conference the trade show – where we had a booth – began.
Enter the third element of this post’s triumvirate: Serendipity. Within the first two hours of the expo, and repeatedly confirmed during the next two days, it became absolutely clear what we had to do and where the opportunities for FeedBlitz lay. Visitor after visitor gave us the same story, wanted to know how we could provide a solution, and liked what we had to say.
Essentially, the expo became a giant market research study, where the study came to us and told us unambiguously what we needed to hear.
It’s often claimed that the best benefits of trade shows and industry conferences are the networking opportunities. No debate from me on that one. But if you’re open to serendipity and are able to listen, the benefits go way beyond networking and real-life social interaction.
Oh, and by the way? The first results of the insights are already on the website and appearing in the product. More on that next week!
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