By Shep Hyken The concept of disruption is interesting. If you ask most business people to name a company that is known for being a disrupter, you’ll hear answers like Amazon, Uber and Walmart. Walmart disrupted local businesses when they came into a community. Uber disrupted the taxi-cab industry. And, Amazon started out disrupting bookstores […]
I’ve stressed the importance of finding and exploiting niche markets many times in this space. One of the biggest reasons operating in a niche market is preferred is because you can enjoy higher prices and the higher margins that accompany these higher prices. Usually, when we discuss niche marketing and pricing pressures, we think about […]
You could order online and send a dozen roses to someone you love for about $20. I just checked. So why would you – or anyone else – pay five to 10 times that much? Before we answer that question, let’s examine the florist industry and e-commerce. If you have been a student of e-commerce, […]
By John Tschohl If you focus on your competition, you will constantly be playing catch-up. While you and your competitors are busy fighting over fractions of a market-share point, someone else will come in and completely change the game. In May 2003 I experimented with nine service leaders. I invested $1,000 in each of the below service […]
If I might be excused for mixing metaphors: If you’re the kind of small business owner who typically jumps on the bandwagon, there’s a good chance that ship has already sailed! As I’ve traveled and met small business owners, I’d have to say that too many are sheep and just following the pack. For true […]