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Here’s how most entrepreneur's businesses work:

While this equation is correct, it is also sad. If you remove the entrepreneur from the equation, the business dies along with the success and profit that it creates. In essence, most entrepreneurs don’t own a business, they have a job. The business owns them. If the business cannot exist without them, they have not built a business… They are the business. 

This is what I escaped from. I love my business, our employees, and our clients, but I wanted to remove myself from the equation. I didn’t want to close down or sell the business yet, but I wanted to build new things, and spend energy on new endeavors. I needed an option that didn’t require me in the equation. I wanted to see growth but wanted to detach my time and energy from the outcome.

So I built a system that created this for me with a new kind of equation. This is how I define Owner Optionality:

Easier said than done, but my goal is to show you how to make this a reality faster and easier than you think is possible.

At its core, when you detach yourself from the business and it continues to grow this increases three things for every entrepreneur:

Confidence: You know the business will grow and deliver your vision without requiring your time.

Resources: Your business creates profit, assets, and expertise to help you compound the areas of your life that are most important.

Energy: You spend your time on things that create energy, not consume it.

This is the dream state of every owner. You can exit and hold, sell the business, or simply focus on the areas that bring you energy.

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With the right strategies, you can easily manage the challenges of scaling and achieve success. 

Scale Your Business and Build Your Exit Strategy

These tips can help you scale up your service-based business:

Diversify your services. Offering different services helps to increase customer appeal and widen your revenue base. It also makes it easier to scale up your business as you can create packages and offer discounts on different services.

Hire the right team. You need a team of individuals who can handle the increased demand that comes with scaling up. Make sure that each team member is qualified to handle the additional workload and can quickly provide the same high-quality service you are known for.

Invest in the right technology. Technology is key to any service-based business as it helps to streamline processes and provide a better customer experience. Make sure you have the right systems and software in place so that you can accurately measure performance and provide better customer service.

Develop a customer-focused strategy. You need to make sure that your customer experience remains consistent no matter how much you're scaling up. Focus on developing strategies for customer acquisition, onboarding, support, retention, and loyalty. This will help make your customers happy and keep them coming back.

Review your processes. Make sure that you consistently review and update your processes as this will ensure that your services are delivered efficiently and effectively. You’ll reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and make it easier to scale up

If you are the only person who can close a six-figure deal, you’re likely the bottleneck that keeps your company from scaling.

Empower Your Team to Create Demand & Authority in Your Industry

I’m no longer the only industry expert on the team, and I’m no longer the only salesperson, nor is my presence required to close every deal.

Every member of my team plays a role in creating demand – long before we ever engage a prospective client. Let’s walk through the Five A’s of creating demand, beginning with how my team is sharing in the authority and attention that I used to build my business in the first place. 

As a founder, you’re the face and the name of the service you provide and the industry you represent. People listen when you have something to say. Don’t let it become an ego trap.

For instance, when I’m asked to speak at conferences, I regularly refer the organizers to the appropriate team member. They’re professionals in their specific areas and, frankly, more qualified than I am.

By transferring my authority to members of my team, we’re doing two things:

We’re multiplying our revenue capacity.

We’re establishing the company as the authority in our business.

What good is authority if nobody’s paying attention, right? Businesses talk a lot about social media platforms and other forms of online content, which is great. I create attention with newsletter subscribers, our podcast, and our social following. I’m always looking for ways to capture people's attention.

Too often, founders are so focused on having avenues of communication that they forget about providing value to their audience.

How can you serve your audience so that you keep their attention?

Does a team member’s niche expertise give your audience insight they can't get elsewhere?

Once you have an audience, how do you use that as a sales tool?

For example, I have a website that gets close to 50,000 visitors. It’s a super-niche in the insulation category. When I talk to anybody involved in this super-niche, they can decide to work with us or with someone else.

The size of our audience gives us an edge. We give the new client an advantage by featuring them to our readers or listeners, and we’re doing so in a way that adds value to people who subscribe to our platforms.

An affiliate is an advocate. They’re reaching an entirely different audience who may have a problem you can solve.

For instance, your team is at a trade show. A vendor a few booths down is talking to a prospect who asks a question specific to your business — a problem the vendor can’t solve.

They want to be helpful to the prospect. They know and trust your company – and the person staffing the booth. That’s when they tell the prospect, “Hey, go talk to my friend. They’ll treat you right.”

The vendor doesn't want a commission, but they’re actively vouching for you.

You might argue that an audience is an asset — and it is. In this context, though, I’m talking about tools, technology, and the people who run them. Creative use of tech can make processes quicker, easier, or better in a way that no one else can duplicate. 

Technology that can become the proprietary solution for an “unsolvable” industry-wide problem is a valuable asset that creates demand.

Flickr and Etsy are two examples of how niche solutions have shifted the marketplace.

The asset you've created becomes more valuable when it doesn't depend on you. You can become a bottleneck, or you can build a team that multiplies your sales process and your growth.

With the first choice, your revenues are directly tied to your name, your expertise, and your calendar.

The second gives you options about how much or how little time you spend on your business. 

How much effort do you put into “beating your competition?” 

It’s easy to fixate on what other businesses are doing — especially when you lose a customer. Focusing on what they’re doing to win, isn’t going to solve why you’re losing.  The truth is … chasing better will always leave you wanting more. What actually drives demand is how you are different, not better. Here’s what most companies don’t understand:  If you didn’t create the category then you need to separate yourself from it as quickly as possible.(If you want dive deeper on this idea, checkout The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, by Al Ries and Jack Trout.)

Don’t waste your time getting better. Focus on what sets you apart. Better might grow your business but difference is how you scale. Instead of worrying about all the things you have to change to get better (cutting costs, reducing shipping times, improving customer experience), you are laser-focused on a single question:

“What can we do that no one else can?” 

Knowing what you’re uniquely capable of requires a deep and honest understanding of the strengths, capabilities and weaknesses of you and your team.  Most importantly though, you have to know your customer AND the problems or friction points, they experience in your industry that everyone accepts ass just part of the process. Here are two examples of how “different” is better than “better”.

Ryanair was on the brink of bankruptcy when CEO Michael O’Leary made a bold bet. He believed that most passengers would be willing to sacrifice small comforts like reclining seats or in-flight meals and entertainment if it meant saving money. O’Leary and his team even contemplated removing toilets to add more seats or charging passengers to use the onboard bathrooms.

The company’s slogan became: "We promise to get you from A to B for the lowest possible price, but that's all we'll promise."

Unwavering focus on reducing fares has led to an increase in sales and a decrease in operating costs. Today, Ryanair employs 8,500 people and generates annual revenues of more than $3 billion.

Steve Ballmer served as CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, succeeding Bill Gates. During his tenure, Microsoft's share price decreased by 33%. When he resigned, the company's stock price rose 7%. (Ouch.)

Enter Satya Nadella as Microsoft CEO. During his tenure, Microsoft's valuation has multiplied nearly 10 times over as it has recovered from losses. Windows 10 and 11 have both outperformed previous versions, and Azure now commands 18% of the $500 billion global cloud market, making it the second most popular option behind Amazon Web Services.

At an event in San Francisco, he led a discussion with a giant screen behind him. He declared that “Microsoft Hearts Linux.” This was a big deal because Microsoft has historically been hostile to outside companies and open-source software projects.

Today, more than 50% of Azure's compute core runs on Linux, and Microsoft works with Apple, IBM, and Dropbox.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella solved accepted, and acceptable, problems.

O’Leary directly confronted the assumption that air travelers required a balance between price and comfort. Nadella replaced a culture of “Microsoft vs everyone else” with a culture of  “both-and.” 

No other business in their respective industries is capable of or willing to compete on their terms. If you want to scale your business and expect your customers to advocate for you, solve problems that no one else will.

Forget what everyone else is doing. Don’t try to fix everything. Get hyper-focused on exactly one thing: what you can do that no one else can.

 The right team can be the difference between a business with a million dollars in annual revenue and ten million dollars.

Accelerate Your Business Growth with A+ Talent

The first time you're a bottleneck for your business is usually when it’s bringing in around $10,000 to $20,000 a month. This is when you need to start taking on salary, which means it’s also time to prepare for the third stage of business growth by hiring A+ talent.

You’re on your own until you hit $10,000 in monthly revenues. You will stall out until you can replicate your process to meet demand.

At this point, you’re learning how to make more money.

Level 2: Reinvest Profits Into Hiring Talent

You and your team are learning to make money more efficiently. You’re refining processes. You’re continuing to innovate because you have new perspectives on board.

Now you’re generating $50,000 to $100,000 monthly, and it’s time to level up again.

Each of these phases requires top talent who will do more than replicate. You need A+ people to push you, to see what you can’t see, and to do what you can’t do.

They’re making your business processes run more efficiently, and they will see opportunities you don’t — because they’re better than you are. They’re experts in their area of responsibility.

Lives the culture and vision of the company.

Challenges the rest of the team to live the culture & vision.

At our company Christmas meeting, my only responsibility was to show up and enjoy our time together. No one ran the agenda past me because they didn’t need to. They trusted themselves and each other to say what needed to be said and do what needed to be done.

When I hired a CEO, she blew me away. We were having a conversation, and she said, “Your vision is too small.”

Looking back, I see — and we have tangible evidence on our balance sheet — that her vision is bigger than mine.

To learn more about A+ talent, I encourage you to do some quick research on the following:

William Hahn of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

The differences may seem small – hardly quantifiable, especially in the beginning. Ultimately, though, the difference between A talent and A+ talent can make a $9 million difference — or more.

Step by step on how I launched my B2B SaaS company.

Launch a New Business (with Hardly Any Risk)

Last month I made a $250k+ deal. The business has zero marketing, no website no sales team. I'm launching this new company because:  
1. I exited the day-to-day of my B2B agency
2. The new co-services have the same clients as the B2B agency (synergy). It's a B2B SaaS play.

Most people say SaaS businesses are risky to start. Mine isn't. There are 3 steps to making a business low-risk:

 Use an existing customer base: If you have an existing customer base, the risk is nearly eliminated. That's why people want personal brands to sell to people who already trust them.

Know the industry: Know the big brands in the space, the tools customers use, and the pain points. That's how you find the best ideas.

Understand the problem: When you're in the industry, dig into the tools & problems people hate.

Answer these 3 questions and you're set:  

What is my clear offer: "Make the offer so good the client feels like an idiot refusing" - Dan Kennedy (paraphrased)

What product/service best solves the problem: Decide if a product or service best solves the customer's problem. Then what kind of product or service? In my case, I know the existing SaaS tools for my customer don't do the job well, so I'm building a SaaS product.

Do my unit economics meet industry standards or better: Once you've decided on the product or service, determine what industry standards are for gross margins & unit economics. Do this by speaking with an expert.

You've decided on your offer, the type of product, and the business model.  Now you need to make a product that does this: 
1. Solves a problem the current solutions don't solve Or 
2. Solves a problem better than the current solutions do.  
Choose 1 to start.

You know how well your product solves the problem by beta testing with customers.  There's no other way.  This reduces risk significantly.

You now have a clear path to sales.

I didn’t have a crisis or issue that caused this time off but just thought it would be interesting to try.

I disconnected from all technology for 9 days: Here’s what I learned

I forced myself to unplug for 9 days over the holiday. 

Here are my two main takeaways from this time of disconnection:

No distractions meant my mind wandered more easily and I was able to be present instead of constantly wondering what was happening “out there.” I had a ton of ideas during this time of detachment but decided against even getting my journal out and writing them down. I wanted to force myself to be in a state of fallow. The result was that I didn’t feel the need to produce or progress, but rather just be present. Very liberating.

No distractions. No interruptions. This was the ultimate benefit. Removing myself from the frenetic nature of always being on was greatly needed. It also showed me the dopamine hit my mind craves from constantly checking email, slack, social, etc. is not only unnecessary but also unhealthy. I’ve heard that we are too attached to our devices but forcing yourself to go dark highlights how embarrassingly attached I was.

My big takeaway is that I need to do this activity more. Maybe not for 9 days, but even for a few hours here and there throughout the week.

We don’t celebrate disconnection or rest enough in our society; rather, we celebrate always hustling, always-on, never stopping, always performing. This isn’t sustainable and leads to poor outcomes. The balance achieved by disconnecting allows you to rest, get clarity and perform at a higher rate when you actually truly need to work.

Nobody, honestly, really cares about you. What they care about is why you're different.

How The Red Pill Strategy Can Help You Scale Your Business

The Red Pill strategy comes from a popular 1999 film. In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo a choice between a Blue Pill and a Red Pill.

If Neo took the Blue Pill, he would continue to experience an ordinary life. The Red Pill promised a life-changing truth.

The Red Pill positions you as an authoritative figure with a different perspective.

By creating a Red Pill idea, customers will have more confidence and be more likely to sell the idea, leading to business growth and scale.

The Red Pill idea becomes ingrained in the customer's identity, leading them naturally to share it with others, improving pipeline velocity and close rate.

The Red Pill delivers value to your customers — and for your business.

One of my uncommon solutions to a common problem is challenging owners to rethink their “get out of the business” strategy. Rather than selling the business and walking away, you can train your team so well that your team doesn’t need you for day-to-day decision-making.

Red Pill brands include Harley Davidson, Apple, and HubSpot. They're not selling a product. They're selling an idea, and their customers sell it for them.

Let’s zoom out a bit and list a few examples of how an organization’s mission is a Red Pill.

A personal finance company that educates consumers about the drawbacks of high-interest credit card debt and encourages them to adopt a more frugal lifestyle.

A tech company that promotes open-source software and challenges the idea that proprietary software is always the best choice.

A mental health organization that advocates for more open and honest discussions about mental health issues and challenges the stigma surrounding them.

A consumer advocacy group that exposes deceptive or manipulative marketing practices encourages consumers to be more informed and skeptical when purchasing.

An education reform group that challenges traditional approaches to education and promotes alternative methods such as homeschooling or unschooling.

The strategy works in marketing because people are attracted to contrarian points of view.

Our attention spans are so small that we only pay attention to controversial things. Have you followed our political system recently? What sells? Controversy.

Position your company to scratch a skeptic’s itch.

When they see your solution, they think, “Aha, I knew it, I was skeptical.”  And then, “Everyone's saying this, but these guys are saying why!” You become the guide and authority because you have a different perspective and different point of view.

Common problem → common solution = poor outcomes

Common problem → creative & contrarian solution = self—propelled marketing and profitability

Here’s how I built a company that does not need my direct involvement.

Five Steps to Build a Company That Does Not Need You

9 out of 10 entrepreneurs I speak to only take 1 holiday per year.  Last year I took the most I’ve ever taken. Coincidentally, my company had its best year to date.  Here’s how I built a company without needing my direct involvement.

When you have demand, you have options. Demand makes every other problem smaller. This is where all my time went into as I started my business.

Your highest leverage task is making your product/service better because customers will advocate for you.  Getting results means building trust and making far more money long term.

Expansion revenue allows scaling.  A customer that pays you $10k/yr and gets a great return is happy to pay you 10x that if they also get a great return.


4.) Learned how to find & hire A Players  

Finding A Players is tough and getting over the mental roadblock of hiring them is tougher. They require 2x the salary, but get 5x the results. As my organization grew, I didn't just need people to follow the culture. I needed leaders to create and push others to follow the culture. I learned that the A Players could do that and become A+ Players.

Even when the business ran without me, I stuck my hands in everywhere.  It wasn't until I trained my team to operate without me (and tell me they didn't need me) that I could truly step away.

The harsh truth about innovation and culture is that if you want to innovate, you have to look at who your company is at its core.

Every business wants to innovate. Take a look at all the greatest companies from the past decade—Apple, Tesla, Google. What do they all have in common? They all set the bar for world-changing innovation.

The problem executives have with innovation is that it can’t be created like a product or a service. It can't come from a top-bottom decision or a boardroom meeting. It can’t be forced.

You see, innovation comes from inside you; it comes from the depths of you and your company. I’m not getting heartfelt here, but look at some of the biggest innovations in the last century: the electric car, the smart phone, and even social media. They all came about because of what their founders believed.

For innovation to occur, your organization must align your beliefs, values, and purpose. In other words, you must have the right culture.

Let's start with an important fact: every organization has a culture.

Contrary to what you have been taught in school, culture isn't an institution that works only on a macro-social level. Your family has a culture, just like your company, church, or sports team.

Culture is unspoken and invisible, but it exists within every set group. The question is, whether you’re creating an intentional or accidental culture.

Culture is the single most important factor in determining whether or not your organization will achieve your goals.

Its impact is undeniable; the famous management guru Peter Drucker famously said once,

“ Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Culture will outwork, outhustle, and outthink the most talented well resourced companies.

It sets the tone for how your company operates and how your organization leads its people.

According to a study done by Thomas Kell and Gregory T. Carrott, corporate cultures affect employees’ leadership styles more than any other aspect of their jobs. They discovered that employees who work for the same corporation—regardless of their jobs—are 30% more likely to exhibit similar leadership competencies (which they defined as the way a person learns, deduces, envisions, engages, and executes) than people who do the same job but who work in different companies.

Let's say you decide you want to improve customer satisfaction. You can plan, strategize, and set ambitious goals, but if your organization tolerates rudeness and apathy towards each other than the true culture of your organization is going to trickle down and affect how you treat your customers.

Look at the way your employees and fellow executives behave with one another. See what hidden but implicitly understood rules of behavior they have. How do they treat each other? Is there mutual trust or is there selfish ambition?

The end goal is to create optionality for yourself.

 How to Exit the Day-to-Day (Step-by-Step)

My agency does $500k-$1m a month. Some days I work 10 hours.  Some days I work 1 hour and spend time with my family.   I am in this position because I was able to remove myself from the business...  WITHOUT impacting my income.  Here’s how to exit the day-to-day (step-by-step):

Every business owner should want to exit the day-to-day for these 2 reasons: 
1. The asset you've created becomes more valuable when it doesn't depend on you. 
2. The amount of clarity you get will 10x when you step out of operations.

You may have heard someone say:  "I'll build a business, hire an operator, sit back, and collect passive income". But this won't make you happy. Instead, the better end goal is to create optionality for yourself. This is where you want to get to. When you have owner optionality, you can choose to: 
1. Sell the business.
2. Hold the business, but exit the day-to-day 3.
3. Continue to play where you enjoy playing  AKA do what you want.

Most people get this wrong...  When business owners are trying to build a business that they can exit, they start by "exiting" the operations. Don't.
Instead, the first area you need to systemize is demand. How many people want your product/service? When you solve demand, solving every other problem becomes significantly easier. Detach the founder from the demand. The founder is *almost always tied to the demand. They're industry experts. They're the main salesperson. But if you want to exit, you need to empower your team to take that role from you. You need to build a brand that sells itself. People will still come to you. But you need to have a system in place to have your team sell them. When 10% of your yearly sales goal comes in as leads each month, you can shift your focus.

"Helping" is the new selling. Your salespeople should be as much consultants as they are salespeople. Then finally, you can build operating systems. To truly stand out you need "force multipliers" over each of these roles: 
 1. Sales
 2. Operations
 3. Marketing
 4. Finance
Finally, even if your team hits 100% of your metrics, you still need to train them to do this one thing...  Push you out. Otherwise, you'll probably never leave. Train your organization to push you out. Focus on the high-level, visionary tasks that have the most leverage.

That includes your unique set of gifts, your personality, your sense of humor and most importantly, your heart. I believe that whether you run your own business or not, a creative and entrepreneurial approach is critical to fully blossom in the modern world and to experience the happiness and fulfillment you deserve.

No matter what your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your life and, by doing so, you’ll change the world.

This philosophy, a dogged amount of hard-work and a discernible amount of grace have lead to some wonderful milestones.

I decided I was no longer the right person to run the ship.

in December 2021 I stepped away from running my agency Venveo. I started this business in my college dorm room and over the course of 15 years bootstrapped it to 50+ employees. The success we experienced is nothing short of incredible. As we grew I found my focus shifting to different ventures and new things I wanted to build. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t love Venveo, but my skillset for going to zero-to-one was of much better use to Venveo outside of the business. Thus, I decided I was no longer the right person to run the ship. I promoted Beth Popnikolov to CEO and she is doing a stellar job.

After exiting, the number one question I get from other entrepreneurs is “How did you do it?”
“How did you build it and remove yourself, yet hold the business.”

To me it seems simple, but to others, it is more than a mystery, but a sign of hope. The reason it is hope is because most business owners feel trapped, and are operating at great personal sacrifice to keep their businesses running. They started their business to achieve freedom but built an all-consuming beast instead. They think the only option is to sell the business or shut it down.

This isn’t the truth, but it is their reality.

I’ve been fortunate to find that there is another solution which I call “Optionality”. This is where you build the business to run itself but still give yourself the option to hold it, work in the areas you enjoy, or sell it. 

Here’s the kicker: the outcome of the business is separated from your output.

I've realized that there are so many other entrepreneurs who could benefit from the insights and experiences I've gained, and I want to share that knowledge with others.  I believe if more owners built their businesses with this in mind — more of the world’s problems would be solved.

I’m thrilled to launch a weekly email to help solve those problems. I’m calling it The Optionality Newsletter — each edition drops on Saturday mornings at 8:00 AM eastern. 

This newsletter will be focused on helping you achieve optionality in your lives and business so you can build more things and achieve greater success. I will be sharing my own stories and lessons learned, as well as insights from other successful entrepreneurs and experts in the field. I am passionate about this new venture and I am excited to see where it will take me.

In 2022 one of my companies grew by seven figures … without me.

In 2022 one of my companies grew by seven figures … 

Believe me, it’s been fun to watch this business flourish, but few people understand the depth and breadth of the painful lessons I had to learn to get to this place.

You can’t learn to become an entrepreneur … you simply are one, whether you like it or not. Entrepreneurship is not like becoming a pilot. It's not a program you can train in. It’s a desire you can’t stop. You can no more train someone to become an entrepreneur than you can keep an entrepreneur from starting something new. As an entrepreneur, you’re so obsessed with building your own thing, you’re virtually unemployable. You naturally seek freedom, not boundaries.

The problem is that most entrepreneurs build monsters, not machines. If you stop working, your business will fail. 

You are the business. This is why most entrepreneurs feel trapped in their own dream they’ve built.

You can't stop working. You think the only solution is to work harder, grow more and one-day things will get better. If you’re like me, you pour every part of your being into growing your business — without ever considering the consequences on your family, health, enjoyment of life, and business.

Growth as an Outcome is a Fool’s Errand

I know this to be true because I nearly lost everything dear to me. I struggled for eight years with my business and couldn't turn a profit. I reached a critical point when my third child was born with serious health issues, which required a huge amount of my time and resources. But my business was already taking up every second of my time and every ounce of my mental and emotional energy.

The business was wrecking my life. It demanded everything from me, yet I wasn't making money. We were $90,000 in debt. At least, that’s what I thought. (The debt was actually upwards of $150,000.) I tried to declare bankruptcy and realized, “Oh, shoot. I cannot escape from this kind of debt.” That’s when I knew the only way out was through the mess.

I knew the way I’d been running the business for the previous eight years wasn’t working, and I was out of time waiting for it to pan out. So, almost overnight, I changed everything about my business, including:

They say the best creativity is born from desperation. I wish I didn’t know how true that was.

A year later, I had paid off all of my debt. The business was growing, and I even had some money in the bank. I thought I was killing it! I thought my marriage was great. My wife is my best friend. We never had crazy, contentious fights. We had three kids (now four). Life was good.

When my wife came to me and gave me her ring, I was stunned. She was direct: “Hey, I love you. But you can gain the whole world and still lose me.” That was my first wake-up call. Being laser-focused on my business blinded me to the needs of the people I loved most, and I never knew how much I was hurting them. The second wake-up call happened simultaneously as the stress of the business caused me to get shingles.

Our conversation and my health led me on a journey to create balance in my life. I realized that if something didn’t change, I’d lose my marriage, business, and sanity. At the time I only saw two options: sell the business or shut it down. I didn’t want to do either option, so I created my own. 

Instead of selling the business or shutting it down, I built it to where I had the option to sell or let it run without it controlling my life while funding my lifestyle.

This helped save my marriage, support my family, empower my business to grow without me, and gave me the opportunity to build and spend time on the things I want. And what I’ve come to realize is that’s what entrepreneurs really want. We don’t just want more money or growth, those are a means to an end. We want to spend as much or as little time in our business as we want, while still funding our dreams. 

We want to sell on our terms or not at all. What you want is Optionality, and my mission is to help you achieve it.

Data has its part in any decision, but it shouldn’t be the only concern executives have when considering what move to make next.

What Aunt Jemima Can Teach You About Data and Innovation

The business world loves the idea of using data to make important decisions. The reason is simple: data takes the emotional and subjective irrationality from the decision-making process. Executives think if they can be more rational, they will be more successful. There's some truth to that, but in many cases, using data exclusively can hurt executives more than it helps them.

Data has its part in any decision, but it shouldn’t be the only concern executives have when considering what move to make next. To show you what I mean, let me tell you a story.

What Aunt Jemima Can Teach You About Data

Back in the 50’s, Aunt Jemima was a well-known brand of pancake mix that wanted to grow its market share. To help accelerate their sales, they hired a young advertiser named George Lois.

After working with the company for a time, George Lois asked Aunt Jemima:

"How come you guys don't have syrup? You own the pancake business," Lois recounts in an interview he recently did for NPR. The company replied, "Well, that's not our business."

According to Lois’ vision, Aunt Jemima was a syrup brand in addition to a pancake mix one. This may seem like a trivial addition, but it wasn't; Lois believed Aunt Jemima was attempting to grow their brand in the wrong way - by increasing the sales of its already-popular pancake mix. Instead, they should create a complementary product and grow market share that way.

Lois tried to convince them to manufacture and sell Aunt Jemima syrup, but to no avail. The company wasn't interested in creating a new product offering.

Instead of getting into an argument on why Aunt Jemima should change their offering, Lois decided to create a simple questionnaire about pancakes for their customers to answer. The questionnaire asked which brand of syrup they had purchased recently, and included the option "Aunt Jemima Syrup."

Today, anyone recognizes that product, but back in the 50's, it didn't exist. The only product Aunt Jemima sold were pancake mixes.

The results caught Aunt Jemima off guard:

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