How to grow your business with Agile Thinking
Business is changing. Moreover, business is changing fast!
This is great news for agile business owners, who embrace the opportunities. However, it’s not such great news for business owners who are working in today’s rapidly changing environment, with a 1995 approach to business.
In today’s post, I share some ideas on how you can benefit from the new opportunities around you. First, I’d like to demonstrate how things have changed and why we need to apply a new mindset, to the new landscape.
A new mindset for a new landscape
Many of the world’s most influential businesses were unknown 20 years ago. Some, such as Facebook and Twitter, weren’t founded until the mid 2000’s. That kind of global growth was previously unthinkable. What’s more, billion dollar companies that lead their industries have been started by relative unknowns, in very untraditional ways.Here’s a great example. Writing in Techcrunch, Tom Goodwin summed up the new age of agile business:
“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.”Tom is right. Something interesting is happening. None of those achievements or business models were possible until very recently. The game has changed. And it has changed for ever.
The age of agile business
When I look at small businesses, they tend to fall into one of the following 2 broad categories: They are either dinosaurs or agile progressives. That’s to say their approach to the agile business landscape means they are facing extinction or facing unparalleled success.Armed with a laptop and an idea, there’s very little an agile business cannot achieve.
- The new business landscape allows an agile small business owner to have an idea in the morning, and put that idea into play before the end of business that same day.
- Using social networks, we can listen to what our marketplace wants and provide that want. No more guess work. You can get it right every time. And in a fraction of the time.
- Instant access to data, means research that took weeks or months can now be done in days and at a fraction of the price.
- With a great marketing email and some email software, a struggling business can generate a fortune in sales… and fast!
- With a blog and the correct strategy, anyone can develop their own reader community. I reach thousands of people every day, many of whom are prospective clients, without spending a penny on advertising or promotion.
- If you have a great business idea, you no longer need a bank loan. Thanks to Indiegogo, Kickstarter and others, you can use crowdfunding and get exactly what you need.
- They try and find customers for their products, instead of finding products for their customers.
- They still take just as long to make a decision, even though they can get the feedback they need in a fraction of the time. As a result, their agile competitors have already eaten their lunch.
- They use social networks to follow the crowd, rather than lead their marketplace.
- They have a website that’s almost an online brochure, when they should have a site that’s a lead-generating machine.
- They waste money advertising, when they should be building their own platform.
- They waste time, money and energy attending networking groups, like it’s still 1980, rather than build their own audience or community.
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