Go Deep Before Broad

So rumors have been swirling that a well-funded business that I believe was not only here in Utah, but I think in Arizona as well, a well-funded business that had created a big name for itself over the last several years has gone under. And while there were some market conditions that definitely didn't help, there are other decisions that seem to be made earlier on in the process that probably doomed this business. And when we talk about a business that is built deep instead of broad, One of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make is they start selling a single product or service and they get really good at it or good at parts of it, let's say parts of it. And then very, very quickly they will start tacking stuff on.

Stuff they're not best in the world at providing. I've said in other videos sometimes menus in restaurants and so many items in stores, sometimes that sets a bad example for everyone because we think that's the best way to make value is to tack stuff on and sell more stuff. Whether it fits what we're best in the world at or not. And what you learn in business is that you can be infinitely more successful faster if you have a focused business model.

And a focused business model means you are best in the world at delivering on a couple of things early. And if we're best in the world at delivering on a couple of things early, we can add more stuff later on. We hit a few goals, we achieve some operational success with our clients and delivering consistently. We knock out all the kinks in our system.

We hit a few goals over over time. And then we start adding more products, more services to that, you know, to our offering. But we have to start out by being best in the world at a couple of things. And that focused business model is what can make businesses infinitely more successful, particularly, you know, as they get from startup to scale up before they get, you know, scale up.

It's kind of the mid-market and before they get into the more mature mid-market. That's where you want to be. So as a coach that helps organizations scale up, one of the things that held a record for in our coaching organization a few years ago was I had a record number of clients on the Inc 5000 list. And there was one thing that was really cool and unique about all those clients was that they were all best in the world at one or two things.

And do I coach, you know, businesses that are, that have more than one thing? Yes, I actually coach a restaurant. I coach retail operations and that's totally fine. Those businesses were built in a certain way.

They usually started out with a smaller menu of offerings and they got very, very good at delivering on those and they added more and more over time. That's how we want to do it. But you have to be careful to tacking more stuff on before you're good at a handful of things. And that's what those organizations that made the Inc.

5000 list were so good at doing is they're saying, no, no, no, no. Let's be best in the world at one or two things. Let's nail those and over time we will increase our offerings. And when you get, you know, over your ski tips, it's when you start offering things that you have no business offering.

So again, take a really close look. If you're a CEO or a leader in a company, take a really close look at what you're offering. Say, are there things that, you know, are not profitable that we're not good at delivering and that take too much time to execute relative to the value they create. Level of effort.

And let's see if we can knock some of those out and just get down to those handful of things that we are best in the world at executing. And that's why it's so much better. What you see is organizations can succeed if they're focused fully on going deep, learning to be best in the world at one or two things before going broad, which is adding more things related to that one or two things you're best in the world at. Last thing, we may be in the last few days of TikTok, so feel free to follow me on Instagram or on LinkedIn.

You'll find that in my bio.