I was spending times each week studying the wonderful translation and original text side by side, delving into the words and the meanings intricately woven between the lines, all thanks to Ms. Yamada Fumi’s brilliant translation. I extracted insights on ways of thinking from the 324 pages. Having understood the meaning in Japanese, I purchased the original book. I hope to memorize both the Japanese and English passages, connecting this study to improving my English expression for various business scenarios. (till page 194, Jan. 8, 2024 by Shimada)
A company of one is simply a business that questions growth. A company of one resists and questions some forms of traditional growth, not on principle, but because growth isn’t always the most beneficial or financially viable move.
It can be a small business owner or a small group of founders. Employees, executive leaders, board members, and corporate leaders who want to work with more autonomy and self-sufficiency can adopt the principles of a company of one as well. In fact, if big businesses want to keep their brightest minds in their employ, they should look to adopt some of the principle of company of one.
I’ve personally seen the most success in my life when I’ve figured out solutions to problems without having to do what traditional business do to solve problem–hire more people, throw more money at the problem, or build complex infrastructures to support the extra employees.
Basically, I’m not interested in addressing problems by throwing “money” at them. Solving with “more” means more complexity, more costs, more responsibilities, and typically more expenses. More is generally the easiest answer, but not the smartest. I’ve found both delight and financial benefits in working out solutions to problems without growing.
Instead, I and many others enjoy handling problems with the resources currently available. Although it can require a little more ingenuity, solving problems this way can set a business up for long-term stability, since less is needed to keep it afloat.
In October 2016, I wrote a blog post saying I wasn’t interested in exponentially growing and company I own o build. I felt like the single red fish in a school of green ones. But then an interesting thing happened : replies started to poor n. People doing all sorts of exciting things in business, from selling “fair-trade caramels” to working at the biggest tech companies to manufacturing clothing, emailed me that they felt the same way — they had resisted traditional growth and had benefited from it.
As I started to develop my own ideas around this concept of staying small and questioning growth, I continue to discover more and more research, stories, and examples of others doing the same. I found that there’s a silent movement to approach business in this way that isn’t just for cash-strapped tech startups or people who make just enough to to scrape by.
This movement includes individual and business making six and seven figures and becoming happier than most businesspeople are with the work they do. The school of red fish is, ironically enough, growing.
Technically, everyone should be company of one. Even at a large corporation, you’re essentially the only person who look out for your own best interests and continued employment. No one else cares about you keeping your job as much as you do. It’s your responsibility to define and achieve your own success, even in a large framework of employment.
It can be harder to be a company of one within a corporation, but it’s not impossible. Companies of one within organizations can thrive and even be responsible for massive progress. Over the years these individuals have been credited with everything from inventing Post-it notes to developing Sony’s PlayStation.
The word “intrapreneur” points to one example of a company of one within a larger organization. It describes corporate leaders who come up with their own goals and then execute them. They don’t need much direction, micromanaging, or oversight, as they’ve been given full work autonomy. They know what needs doing and they just do it. They’re aware of the needs of the company and how their talents, and they just get to work. (Key word :intrapreneur is a person who innovate new project in the existing company)
When the term “intrapreneur” varies from a company of one is that intrapreneurs are typically responsible for product creation and marketing — that is, creating something new, with the resources of the company behind them. Companies of one within organizations don’t need to be manager or create products — they simply need to find suitable ways to become better and more productive, without more resources or team members. They can certainly be managers or creators, but not the only definition.
Company of one within larger corporations have a history of helping large corporations make breakthroughs and dominate markets. Dave Myers, who worked for W.L. Gore and Associates, the company that makes GoreTex fabric, was given “dabble” time to develop new ideas within the company and ultimately came up with the idea to use a kind of coating they were already manufacturing on guitar strings.
The result was the best-selling acoustic guitar string brand, Elixir (the strings I use on my guitars — they’re head and shoulders above the competition). Sometimes companies of one happen by accident. Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, was working to create an adhesive for aerospace. In playing with the formula, he created a lighter adhesive that didn’t leave any residue. It wouldn’t work for planes, but it was perfect for paper products, and thus Post-it notes were born.
Some large corporations, like Google, give their employees “personal time” to experiment with ideas outside their typical job roles. Facebook uses “hackathon” which typically last several days and bring together computer programmers to collaborate on something big in a relatively short amount of time. It was a hackathon that led to the creation of Facebook’s “Like” button, which “arguably” connects its “ecosystem” to the rest of the internet. (Key word : mening of arguably is similar to “probably” and it’s possible to proof because it’s related with argement to prove it true. Ecosystem is a ecology system composed by creature and environment of the earth)
In a recent study, Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth, found that for every 5,000 employees, at least 250 will be true innovators and 25 will be innovators and great intrapreneurs (or companies of one)
Many large corporations have companies of one hiding within them. If the skills and passion for innovation and autonomy of these employees are “fostered”, it can greatly benefit the entire business as a whole. But if they are stifled in their creativeness and freethinking, they tend to move on quickly to other employment or entrepreneurialism .
They’re rarely motivated solely by money or salaries and lean more toward reinventing their job and role in a way that works best for them. (Key word : foster is related foster parent, which is adoptive parent against biological parent and foster parent has not blood relationship)
If you’re company of one, your mind-set is to build your business around your life, not the other way around. For me, being a company of one means not having to bother with infinite growth, since that was never the purpose of my working. Instead, I just focus on maximizing work in a way that works for me, which can sometimes mean doing less.
Work can be done at a pace that suits my sanity rather than one that supports costly overhead, expenses, or salaries. As much as I enjoy growing my wealth, I also realize that there’s a point of diminishing returns if I don’t also take care of myself and my well-being.
Society has ingrained in us a very particular idea of what success in business looks like. You work as many hours as possible, and when your business starts to do well, you scale everything up in every direction. To this day, this strategy is considered what it takes to be a success in business — solving problems by adding “more” to the solution. Anyone who stays small, in this line of thinking, hasn’t done well enough to add “more” to the mix. But what if we challenge this way of thinking in business? What if staying small is what a company does when it’s figured out how to solve problems without adding “more” to them?
Growth, especially blind growth, isn’t the best solution to any problem a business might face. And going further, growing your business might actually be the worst decision you could make for the “longevity” of your business. (Key word : longevity is life continues for the lont time or long life time)
So a company of one is not anti-growth, or anti-revenue, and it’s not just a one-person business either (although it certainly can be.) It’s also not just working with a tech-focused or startup mind-set, although “leaning” on technology, automation, and the “connectedness” of the internet definitely makes it easier to be a company of one.
A company of one questions growth first, and then resists it if there’s a better, smarter way forward. Next, let’s look at the four typical traits of all companies of one: “resilience”, autonomy, speed, and simplicity. (Key word : lean is similar to “trust”. Connectedness is an idea of connection. Trait is similar ro characteristic. Resilience is similar to flexible toughness)
Danielle LaPorte, a best-selling author and self-made entrepreneur, reaches millions of people each month with her message of conscious goal-setting and entrepreneurship and is one of Oprah’s (yes, but Oprah) “Super Soul 100” leaders. But in the beginning, she was fired by the very CEO she had hired months earlier.
In believing that exponential growth was required for her business (more on this in Chapter 2), she took $400,000 in funding from private investors with the provision that she had hire a “wunderkind CEO” to run the business. So she incorporated and hired a thought-to-be superstar. (Key word : Wunderkind is similar to gifted child who has special talent)
But six months later, the investors and CEO wanted to change the business model, which meant “relegating” Danielle’s role to just a few blog posts a month and “substantially” decreasing her pay. Note : named after her, the business was a personality-driven brand based on her own unique personality and style. (Key word : Relegate is rank-down. Substantially is adverv to show wide range of area)
Once Danielle got over the supreme shock of what happened, which involved a lot of yoga, tears, and good friends, she began to bounce back. She brought on a new team of A-players, created a website within a few weeks, and figured out the fastest way to start making money on her own with a new business that she had full control over. She began offering consulting services that became so popular that she had to create a waiting list, and then she wrote a best-selling book
In all the success of her new website, she realized that the strings attached to other people’s money are often those people’s opinions about your business and your life. In hardship, she was able to find her path to becoming a company of one. Being or becoming a company of one has a lot to do with resilience; the capacity and fortitude to recover quickly from difficulties — like a changing job market, or being fired.
Like a shift in a larger company’s focus, or the need to adapt to new disruptive technology — or even to avoid being replaced by robots. (No, this book isn’t a taking a turn toward sci-fi …more on this in a second) (Key word : Hardship is difficulty. Fortitude is mental toughness)
Dean Becker, the CEO of Adaptiv Learning Systems, has been researching and developing programs around the idea of resilience since 1997. His company found that the level of resilience a person exhibits determines their success in business, far more than their level of education, training, or experience. Contrary to popular belief, resilience isn’t something that only a select few and born with. It can most definitely be ;earned. Resilient people possess three — absolutely learnable — characteristics.
The first trait that resilient people have is an acceptance of reality. They don’t need for things to be a certain way and don’t engage in wishful thinking. Instead of imagining “if only this changed, I could “thrive”, ” they have a down-to-earth view that most of what happens in our lives is not entirely within our control and the best we can do is to “steer” the boat a little as we float down the river of life. For example, I’m not going to stop writing today because my neighbor is using his deafening chainsaw.
Rather, I’m going to close my window, turn on some electric music, and get back to work. Danielle LaPorte didn’t throw in the towel after being fired; instead, she took a minute, “regrouped”, then started again. (Key word : Thrive is success or experience prosperity. Steer is changing the direction. Deafening is big noisy sounds. Regroup is organize the team again)
Often, its easier to accept reality with a bit of dark humor. My wife, a firefighter and first responder, regularly jokes around with her department because they’re routinely exposed to the worst day of someone’s life — houses burning down, heart attack, even chainsaw accidents. Their humor is a way of coping that her fire chief actively encourages, not to make light of bad situation, but to add a sense of light to bad situation.
Their sense of humor is just as important as their ability to save lives and put out fires. However “crass” it might sound to an outside, dark humor helps first responders and firefighters accept their reality and therefore keeps them resilient in doing their essential work.
The second characteristic of resilient people is a sense of purpose — being motivated by a sense of meaning rather than by just money. Although purpose and money are not mutually exclusive, you’re more likely to be resilient when you know that even in awful or stressful situations, you’re working toward a grater and larger good. This sense of purpose comes from values that are unchangeable and central to both individuals and companies as a whole.
Companies of one know that they can enjoy their work without always enjoying every aspect of it. So, even if work is sometimes stressful, as long as it relates to a greater whole or a greater end result, that tough work is worth in the end. For example, you may get stressed out on the day you launch a new product or land a new client, but if the product or the client “aligns” with the purpose of your business, that momentary anxiety is worth it, since not every day will be nearly as stressful. (Key word : Crass is similar to insensitive. Align is accord something in one line)
The last trait of resilient people in a company of one is the ability to adapt when things change — because they invariably do, In Canada, 42 percent of jobs are at risk, according to Ryerson University, from advances in automation, and 62 percent of jobs in America will be in danger within the next ten to twenty years, according to the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers in 2016. As much as we can joke about “welcoming our robot overlords” (a memorable quote from the 1977 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’s short story “Empire of the Ants”), the threat is real.
MacDonald’s has a robot that can “flip” a burger in ten seconds and could replace an entire crew within a few years. Tesla and other companies are working on self-driving big “rigs” to replace truckers for long-range cargo delivery. Highly skilled jobs are also at risk: IBM’s Watson, for instance, can suggest available treatments for specific “ailments“, drawing on the body of medical research and data on disease. (Key word : Flip is turning over. Rig is similar to compose. Ailment is moody or mild illness)
However, what’s difficult to automate is exactly what makes a company of one great: the ability to creatively solve problems in new and unique ways without throwing “more” at the problem. Whereas workers in “doing” roles can be replaced by robots or even by other workers, the role of creatively solving difficult problems is more dependent on an irreplaceable individual. Regardless of the rise of the so-called robot overlords, this is where the strength of a company of one lies.
A company of one sees coming shifts like the above and can “pivot“. For example, and interior designer may spend less time measuring and ordering supplies and more time creating innovative design concepts based on a unique client’s needs. Or a financial adviser may spend less time analyzing a client’s financial situation and more time understanding the client’s particular needs and teaching them how best to manage their money. (Key word : Pivot is similar to change)
These industry disruptions or market changes aren’t a sky is falling scenario—they’re truly just opportunities to redefine work and adapt to changes. When I was doing web design fulltime, each time an economic bubble burst or a recession hit I found myself in a great place to find more jobs because I could offer the quality of work a larger agency could provide, but at a price that had one less zero in it.
And not only was I still making more profit than if I had been salaried at an agency, but I could still make the most of the price I was charging because my overhead was almost nothing past having a computer and writing off the second bedroom in a rental condo. And then, when the economy picked back up, agencies were so busy that they had to farm out work, which I was available for. So either way, I had a model for revenue that larger agencies couldn’t have replicated without scaling down immensely. Improvising when changes happens or when difficulties arise in the market allows you to make do with what’s at hand, without having to add “more” into the mix — as in, more employees, more expenses, or more infrastructure.
These traits for resilience are absolutely learnable, not just “inherent“. In fact, they must be learned, and then fostered, if you are creating a company of one. (Key word : Inherent is original characteristic given from the birth)
AUTONOMY & CONTROL
Companies of one are becoming more popular because people want more control and “autonomy” in their lives, especially when it comes to their careers. This is why so many people are choosing this path: being a company of one lets you control your own life and your job. (Key word : Autonomy is a self decision right)
But to achieve autonomy as a company of one, you have to be a master as your core skill set. Competence and autonomy are tied together because the opposite — having complete control but not a clue what you’re doing — is a recipe for disaster. So just as Tom commanded a knowledge of marketing form his Harvard MBA education and subsequent corporate marketing job, as well as a talent for drawing that he had fostered since childhood and worked at weekly, you have to have a skill set, or a combination of skill, that’s in demand. With a well-developed skill set, you’ll know what are areas will benefit from growth and what potential places for growth don’t make sense. Basically, you have to be good at your skill set before you can expect to achieve autonomy from using it.
Typically, you can’t acquire this mastery without putting in some time at the beginning of your career in a job that’s less autonomous, offers less control, and requires less resilience, since you’re managed by the whims of someone higher up. Companies of one know how to break standard rules for the greater good. Doing so is tricky, however, as it involves learning the rules first.
In the beginning, a pre-company of one adopts the mind-set of a sponge—basically, you learn everything you can about your profession, your industry, and your customers, and you work at collecting valuable skills of your trade. Corporations that excel at creating autonomy for their best employees often empower them to become something like companies of one: these employees work faster and more ingeniously, and they use fewer resources. For example, Google gives its engineers “20 percent time”: they can work on whatever project they want for 20 percent of their time. More than half of the products and projects Google releases were created were created during this 20 percent times.
Other companies set up ROWEs (Results-Only Work Environments), in which employees don’t have set schedules, all meetings are optional, and it’s entirely up to employees how they spend their time working. They can choose to work from home, they can work from 2:00 AM to 6:00 AM if it suits them, and can “sculpt” their job however they want, as long as the results benefit the company as a whole. Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson have defined and then studied ROWE implementations for over a decade, and they find that in these kinds of autonomous environments, productivity goes up, employee satisfaction goes up, and turnover goes down. (Key word : Sculpt is create something in 3D design)
For entrepreneurs or those working for themselves, autonomy may seem easier to achieve but can come with several pitfalls. Often when you start working for yourself you trade micromanaging bosses for micromanaging clients. The solution to finding better clients and better projects has a lot to do with your skill and experience, just as I mentioned at the start of this section.
When you’re starting out and your skills aren’t as developed, you won’t be able to lead projects or be too picky about the type of work you do. But as your expertise increases and your network grows, you can land better clients—the kind who listen more carefully to how you would do what they’re paying you to do — and you can be more selective about the types of customers and projects you want to take on.
Kaitlin Maud, a digital strategist and currently a freelancer, put in her time developing her skills at an agency for five years. She spent that time learning the ropes of her industry as well as building a solid network of contracts, with whom she actively kept in touch. Just like Tom the “cartoonist”, she didn’t venture out on her own until she had enough freelance projects to bring in a relatively stable side income. (Key word : Cartoonist is similar to an illustrator who draws humorous images.)
Kaitlin thinks that a sense of autonomy looks different on everyone. She herself has created a work life that rewards her for getting her work done quickly. In a typical company, regardless of how quickly you work, you’re still required to be there for a set number of hours a day; in other words, there’s no reward for productivity or efficiency. Kaitlin has also found that she’s able to set work done with more focus from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, so she doesn’t schedule meeting or calls during that window of time.
According to a study from Upwork, freelancing now accounts for more than one-third of jobs in America. Like Kaitlin, people are increasingly choosing to go freelance — that is, they’re not using freelance work as a fallback because because their job disappeared. Freelance makes up almost half the jobs being done by younger people, who are choosing to freelance in hopes of gaining more control over their career path. As a society, we’re gradually starting to view “work” not as a single place of employment, but as a series of engagements or projects, The millennial generation in particular views the tradition aspiration to a corporate job in an office as something like a satirical sitcom, a la The Office, than something they wish to strive for.
With a stable of side project clients and vast network of contacts in hand, Kaitlin left her agency job standard to freelance full-time. When she started, she first worked at leveling up her skill set before focusing on becoming more autonomous. Since going solo, she’s had a steady waiting list, regularly has to turn down projects that aren’t a fit for her values, and has worked with some large companies like Beats by Dre, Taco Bell, Adobe, and Toms.
Her work, because she put in the time to become great at it, now “revolves” around her life. She can focus entirely on the type of work she loves, solving problems with creative solutions online — basically, Kaitlin is the Olivia Rope (of Scandal fame) of the internet. She fixes things that no one else can — and she’s well on her way to becoming her own company of one. (Key word : Revolve is core of rotation)
Sol Orwell, a fellow Canadian, has refused venture capital for his very profitable business, Examine.com, because he doesn’t see an upside in relinquishing control to venture capitalists. He doesn’t need cash — his company makes seven figures per year. He isn’t looking for a quick out or trying to sell — he enjoys his work a great deal. As a majority owner, he doesn’t have to answer to anyone except his paying customers.
Sol would rather have ownership of his work and the freedom to not have to fill every minute of every day with his job. Success to him means making a great living, but at the expense of being able to take long middy breaks to walk his dog or attend hourlong dance classes on a Wednesday afternoon.
But bear this in middle: achieving control over a company of one requires more than just using the core skill you are hired for. It also requires “proficiency” at sales, marketing project management, and client “retention“. Whereas most normal corporate workers can be hyper focused on a single skill, companies of one, even within a larger business, need to be generalists who are good at several things — often all at once. (Key word : Proficiency means very high abiity performance. Retention is similar to maintainance)
Companies of one work best under constraints — because that’s where creativity and ingenuity thrive. Companies like Basecamp have a four-day workweek during the summer (not work on Fridays) because it helps them prioritize what’s important to work on and what they can let go of. The key for their employees is to figure out how to work smarter to accomplish tasks with the time they’ve got, not just harder. Companies of one question their systems, processes, and structure to become more efficient and to achieve more with the same number of employees and fewer hours of work.
On the company intranet, Basecamp has a “weekend-check-in” where employees can post photos of what they did on their three days off from work. This helps this remote-based company build connections between its employee, who are spread all over the globe.
Speed is not merely frantically working faster, It’s about figuring out the best way to accomplish a task with new and efficient methods. This is the concept at work in the ROWE method: employees no longer have to work a set amount of time, but are rewarded when they finish their tasks faster. By being smarter at getting more work done faster when you work for yourself, you can create a more flexible schedule that fits into your life in better ways.
Tasks that used to take Kaitlin days to accomplish in the open-office environment of the agency she worked at now take her only a few hours, because she’s figured out what needs to be in place to maximize her productivity. This gives her the space in her workday, when she’s not at peak productivity, to head to the gym or spend time with her newborn daughter. She’s able to accomplish eight hours of agency work in four hours of freelance work, freeing up half her day. She still works hard and sometimes has to work much longer as project deadline loom, but she enjoys the reality that most of the time on her schedule is her own.
Another aspect of speed in a company of one is the ability to pivot quickly when customer base or market changes. As a solo worker or small company, a company of one finds this much easier to do, because it has less “infrastructure” to cut through. (Key word : Infrastructure is total environment like road, building, water, electricity and organization)
So speed works to the advantage of companies of one not only because they’re able to pivot when needed, and far faster, but also because they have less of the corporate mass that often gets in the way. Stewart Butterfield started out developing online games, like Game Neverending and Glitch, Both games failed to gain enough of an audience to become profitable, but both times Stewart was able to pivot his (then) small team, pluck key features from games, and spin them off into their own products —the photo-sharing site Flicker and Slack, an internal chat system that is now worth over $1 billion.
Facing the limitations of both time and money running out, Stewart’s teams managed to hyper-focus on a single solution and bring it to market. By keeping his company small and paying attention to what was working and what wasn’t working, he was able to quickly move to spin-offs that ultimately “netted great gains“. (Key word : net gain=net profit)
When I asked Danielle LaPorte if she’d take funding again for a new business idea, she said no. She’d learned that not accepting outside funding allowed her to move faster. Instead, she said, she would quickly release a first version of a new product that would fund iteration on it, keeping her costs and expenses as low as possible in order to move toward profitability as quickly as possible. The fewer staff and less external funding involved, the faster a company can move, whether forward or in a new, move promising direction.
The best example of the power of simplicity comes from two rival social bookmaking services. Pinboard and Delicious. Delicious grew quickly, adding lots of features, and its founder, Joshua Schachter, made investments early on and grew Delicious into a company with approximately 5.3 million users. The company was sold to Yahoo for somewhere between $15 million and $20 million. Unable to make it profitable, Yahoo sold it to Avos Systems, which removed the popular support forums that Delicious users had come to love. A few years later, Avos sold Delicious to Science, Inc., where Delicious users were continually leaving and using other services.
While Delicious was rapidly changing hands, Pinboard was started by web developer Maciej Ceglowski. He offered his simple service to users at $3 per year, a fee that increased over time to $11 per year. Since the beginning, Pinboard has been a one-person- company with a limited feature-set and with no investors. Ceglowski operated it as a side business for the first few months, until it was generating enough for him to move to working on Pinboard full-time.
Then, on June 1, 2017, Pinboard acquired Delicious for just $35,000 and quickly shut it down to new users, offering existing users the option to “migrate” their account to Pinboard instead. (Key word : Migrate is move from A point to B point)
After rapid growth and increased complexity in its offerings and internal structure, Delicious, in which millions of dollars ha been invested, we ultimately consumed by a company of one for a tiny price. Pinboard had kept things simple, played the long game, and ended up winning.
Typically, as companies gain success or traction, they grow by taking on additional complexities can often detract from a business’s original or primary focus, resulting in more costs and the investment of more time and money. For a company of one at any size, simple rules, simple processes, and simple solutions typically win. Complexity is often well intentioned, especially at large corporations, where, as complicated processes are added to other complicated processes and systems, accomplishing any task requires more and more work on the job not toward finishing the task.
It can be a slippery slope: one step is added to a process without increasing its complexity too much, but then, after a few years of adding steps here and there, a task that once took a handful of steps now requires sign-off by six department heads, a legal review, and a dozen or more meetings with stakeholders.
By contrast, growth for a company of one can mean simplifying rules and processes, which frees up time to take on either more work or more clients, because tasks can be finished faster. With this goal in mind, companies of one routinely question everything they do. Is this process efficient enough? What steps can be removed and the end results will be the same or better? Is this rule helping or “hindering” our business? (Key word : Hinder is similar interefare or Obstruct)
For a company of one to succeed, a strategy for simplifying isn’t just a desirable goal but an absolute requirement. Having too many products or services, too many layers of management, and /or too many rules and processes for completing tasks leads to “atrophy“. Simplicity has to be “mandate”. When Mike Zafiroski became the CEO of Nortel, he “implemented” an “unambiguous” theme of “business made simple” across the entire company. From reducing costs to speeding up product development, to making it easier for customers to get the latest technology, he “wove” the idea of “simple” into every aspect of their large company. (Key word : Atrophy is similar to decilne. Mandate is authorized order and mission. Implement is taking action to ahieve an idea and plan. Unambiguous is “not” ambiguous and not fuzzy and very clear and concrete. Wove is past of weave.)
Often, complexity can “creep” in right from the beginning — when you’re just thinking about starting a new business. You begin to assume that your business requires “essentials” like office space, websites, business cards, computers, fax (just kidding) and custom software solutions. In reality, it’s usually possible to start a business — especially the freelance or startup kind — just by finding and then helping a single paying customer. Then doing it again, and again. And only adding new items or processes to the mix when they’re absolutely required. (Key word : Creep is moving slowly)
STAYING SMALL as a END GOLD
SEAN D’SOUZA DOESN’T WANT TO grow his compny. Sean feels that his job as a business owner is not to endlessly increase profits, or even to defeat the competition, but instead to create better and better products and services that his customers benefit from in their lives and work. In other words, the attention his business gives them, because his company of one focuses solely on serving his existing customers, not on infinite growth.
Like Sean, Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco Partners, has found the right organic size for the businesses he owns and invests in. And it’s working for him, as he’s grown Semco into a business worth more than $160 million. He believes that companiesneed to focus on becoming better instead of simply growing bigger. HIs approach is to question the idea that growth is always good and always unlimited. Ricardo works at determining the size at which each ocmpany he manages can enjoy worldwide competitive advantages and then stop growth from ehre in orderto turn the focus away from getting bigger and toward getting better instead.
A study done by the Startup Genome Project, which analyzed more than 3,200 high-growth tech startups, found that 74 percent of those businesses faild, not because of compatition or bad business plans, but because they scaled up too quickly.
The Kauffman Foundation study also illustrated that 86 percent of companies that succeeded in the long term did not take VC money. Why? Because a company’s interests may not always align with the interests of its backers.
Companies of one instead focus on stability, simplicity, independence, and long-term resilience and rely on starting small and becoming as profitable as posisble. For instance, Buffer, a social media scheduling tool with more than three million users, has seventy-two employees and isn’t looking to grow that number quickly, unless it absolutely has to.
THE DOWNSIDE OF EXCESSIVE GROWTH AS AN END GOAL
The strategy shifted from “broadcasting light…to as many people as possible” to “broadcasting light…to the people with eye to see it.
Starbucks was opening hundreds of stores around the world but decided that it could scale faster by adding sandwiches, CDs, and fancier drinks to its offerings. The rapid expansion ended up diluting the Starbucks brand, and in an equally rapid contraction, the company was forced to close 900 stores. Subsequently, Startbucks returned its focus to doing its one think – coffee-better.
It renewed its efforts to recapturer a boutique coffe shop experience by upgrading coffee machinery, retraining staff in the art of making a perfect espresso shot, and removing a lot of the superfluous products like music and lunch food. Starbucks learned the hard way that better isn’t always bigger.
Not everything needs to scale to succeed — as Leah Andrews, founder of Queen of Snow Globes, discovered almost by accident. She runs an extremely unscalable business: creating intricate and unique snow globes, one at a time, for her customers. From the start, she was inundated with requests for these custom pieces of art, from big names like Quentin Tarantino and Channing Tatum and evenfrom Netflix’s corporate offices, Instead of scaling production, she focused on raising her prices higher and higher until the demand leveled off to where she could handle orders. She focused on creating an amazing product that ws beter than the competition — mass-produced snow globes –and was able to charge a huge premium for her work. Because she focused on making the best product, not the most scalable product, she grew her profits quickly without scaling production, which would have also scaled complexity and expenses.
I doubled my rates over and over until the demand only slightly exceeded the time I had available to do the wor. In doing so, I didn’t need to hire more people to grow profits. I just needed to focus on doing better and better work — putting in the same number of hours but vastly increasing the revenue generated from the work I did. Staying small is still my end goal, because like Sean’s and Ricardo’s vision for corporate success, I look toward betterment instead of infinite scalability.
UPPER BOUNDS
Most businesses set goals and targets, but few consider having an upper bound to them. What if we set upper limits to our goals instead? For instance, “I want to make at least $1 million this quater, but not more than $1.4 million,” or “We need to grow our mailing list by 2,000 people per day, but not more than 2,200”?
In most areas of business, there’s a magic zone for sustainablity that relates to the concept brought up at the start of this book about having “enough”. If growth happens too quickly, problems can arise — like not being able to hire fast enough to keep up, or not having enough infrastructure to handle increased volume.
We will set our pace, one that could be sustained in the long term.
Socrates said that envy is the ulcer of the soul, meaning that we can easily become negative affected by the success of others. Who we are and what we actually want become overshadowed when we internally compare ourselves to others. Envy is also based on false comparison, like comparing uncooked ingredents to a delicious baked pie.
What’s Required to Lead
The Not-so-typical leather. Company of one can be led and run by quiet, thhoughtful, introspective folks, even when there’s a team to manage. It’s not the only possible kind of leader (especially the being-male part). Company of one do require leadership. If you work for yourself, you’ve got to be a leader to successfully pitch your services or products, as well as maintain relationship with clients or customers. Charisma — the so called X-fctor that leaders are supposed to be born with in order to make compelling pitches, inspire urgency, and encourage cooperation — isn’t an innate quality that you either have or don’t have. In fact, charisma can be taught or brought out when required, even in quiet individuals.
Because Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, is a classic introverted leader, he enlists the help of COO Sheryl Sandberg, who offers him social and political guidance. Mark leans on smaller, genuine, collaborative connections rather than attempting to keep a large number of employees or subordinates under his rule.
A study done by professors ar Harvard Business School found that introverted leaders, especially when they are managing skilled and proactive teams, can be highly successful.
Company of one are sometimes quiet people who are internally motivated to make a difference in the world without shouting. I’ve turned my introversion into a positive tool, instead of an excuse for inaction.
Since my practially nonexistent ability to lead could easily be a detriment to my company of one, I only work with freelancers and contractors who don’t require management of any kind. There’re A-Players who know exactly how to get their work done.
It might seem odd that self-directed teams require direction, but in reality, they do require a specific type of direction. Henrik Kniberg, a management coach who’s worked with LEGO and Shopify, believes that assuming an organization can have either full autonomy or full alignment (where tasks for employees strictly align to the goals and directives of their managers) amounts to a false dichotomy. A bit of each is required, both for starting a business and maintaining it. A leader of a company od one has the role of enabling autonomy while providing alignment-setting processes and making sure there are common goals. Achiving this delicate balance can be challenging.
Even a company without employees still requires constrains. In serving clients with very specific deliverable requirements as well as customers who need your product to perform in a precise way, the more you can lean on proceses, systems, and reusable building blocks (from code to marketing language to visuals) in your leadership, the better and faster you’ll be with your work and less you’ll require in terms of hours worked or people hired, even as you gain more in terms of revenue, finished processes, and paid customers.
A VARIED SET OF SKILLS
As a good generalist, you’ll ususally start with a specialization and then add auxiliary and ocmplementary skill as needed, until you’re able to understand all or most apects of the business as whole, not just one specific job within it.
A generalist company of one leader needs to understand quite a few aspects of work to succeed. Not only do such leaders need to be masters at their core skill set, but they also need to understand how business works in general. There are a few leadership qualities of generalization that the leader of a company of one should either have to begin with or be willing to cultivate.
【Psychology】
Being able to understand how others think is critically important to a company of one. You need to know how and why people make decisions about your products or service. What leads them to buy what you create? What makes them hesitate? Where do they place value in their lives? If they do buy from you (Paopao), what is considered a win for them? Where does churn happen in your business and why? Understanding these key factors can make you a better leader, a better salesperson, and a better marketer.
【Communication】
Even though we may not think we’re communicators or writers, most of us spend a large portion of our days writing. Everything from emails to tweets to talking on the phone is communication. The more we can learn about how to communicate clearly and effectively, the better we’ll be at leading, as our directives will be better understood.
【Resilience】
Miles Kington, a British journalist, reportedly said that “Knowledge is knowledge that a tomato is a fruit. Sidsom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” We should never sssume that having an abundance of knowledge is the same as having an abundance of widsom. Even if you have access to a plethora of data or experience, there are still so many factoris beyond your control. The truth is, much of business is a guess. That’s why it’s important to be able to bounce back and reenergize a team when failure strikes. Because it wil.
【Focus】
A compay-of-one leader has to become an expert at defly saying no. You can learn to view saying no as an actual actionable stratefy, as opportunities, task, distractions, plans, meetings and so on all come up frequently. By saying no to anything that won’t serve your business or your team, you can open up space to focus on a better opportunity in your business. You need to learn how to evaluate those opinions quickly and figure out which ones are good to pursure and which one to say no to.
【Decisiveness】
Decision-making can be mentally taxing and draining, and when that happens, many people start to make bad decisions because they’re tired of deciding. By scaling down large, stressful decisions into smaller, more digestible decisions, you can choose a direction more quickly, in a smarter way, and with less stress involved.
EVERYDAY I’M HUSTLIN
That kind of hustling, putting work above eveything else, is inconsistent with the mind-set of running a company of one — with working better instead of working more. There’s real usefulness to sleep and recuparation, and that their work habits should be much calmer. You shallo care more about the work that’s accomplished than about the time it takes to do it. In saying no to anything that doesn’t fit, you leave room to say yes to those rare opportunities that do fit — opportunities that align with the values and ideas of your business.
DEBUGGING THE MYTH OF INDEFATIGABLE LEADERSHOP
The qualities that lead to the leadership roles we achieve are tha exact qualities that “diminish” once leadership roles are attained. (Key word : Diminish is reduce or minimize.)
By recognizing that we are all human — and that all humans are imperfect — we can break down and “debug” this idea that leaders have to be “infallible“. (Key word : Debug is fix something. Infallible is perfect.)
This is how resilience, a major factor in building and “sustaining” a company of one, can be developed — by sharing the burdens as needed. (Key word : Sustain is supprot to continue.)
Finally, leaders need to practise gratitude. Adam Grant of Wharton school of University of Pennsylvania found that when people take the time to thank their contractors, employees, and coworkers, they become much more angaged and productive. Even small expressions of gratitude work — like thankful emails or public “recognition”. (Key word : Recognition is positive appreciation.)
So, by remaining self-aware, being open about our personal successes and failures in equal measure, empathizing with the people we work with, and expressing appreciation for them, we can work toward a cure for the “power tumors” of leadership. The “glorification” of “indefatigable” leaders is exactly the source of most problems, because their failures and “flaws” are ignored instead of “debugged” and learned from. (Key word : tumor is cell cluster of human body. Glorification is honor. Indefatigable means never-feel fatigue/tired. Flaw is defect or fault. Debug is error correction)
Growing a Company That doesn’t Grow
According to the Econsultancy/Responsys Cross-Channel Marketing Report, adding a new customer costs five times as much as keeing and existing one. Staying small and not focusing entirely on growth keep your own integrity and personality at the heart of the business, making it much easier to run your business or team in a way that suits you and helps customers.
People sometimes tend to focus on the wrong things when starting a business, like office space, scaling, websites, business cards, computers. You can add expenses or bigger ideas later, once revenue is coming in. But if your idea requires a lot of money, time, or resources to start, you’re probably thinking too big too soon. Scale is down to what can be done right now, on the cheap and fast, and then “iterated” upon. (Key word : Iterate is Repeat)
If what you sell them can help them become profitable, they’ll neve want to leave your business. They’ll stay on as customers and then probablytell others to become your customers too.
When you tret your relationship with your customer base as simply transaction, you’ll be “preoccupied” with how much you can sell them and how often. The more you begin to treat new customers as real relationships that oyu can grow and foster, and the more you can figure out how what you do can he;pthem, they more likely they are to want to stay on as customers. Customer succeee is the “cornerstone” of a profitable company of one. (Key word : Preoccupy means the sapce of brain is occupied by something. Cornerstone is foundation or pillar to sustain something in the above)
While obscurity can equal less exposure to potential customers at the outset, starting out small and without a massive audience is perfect because it enables you to gain experience and play with your business ideas. Not to mention that there aren’t many people watching if you “fall flat” on your face. (Key word : Fall Flat is mistake)
While obscurity can equal less exposure to potential customers at the outset, starting out small and without a massive audience is perfect because it enables you to gain experience and play with your business ideas. Not to mention that there aren’t many people watching if you “fall flat” on your face. Starting out small is the best timeto learn what your business truly is and why it serves who it serves. There is no need to rush to be noticed faster than you can handle. Starting a company of one requires that you embrace working on what’s achievable now, which usually means embracing less than your vision for your ideal future. (Key word : Fall Flat is mistake)
You can’t start a business with every idea you’ve got for it listed in the “need to have” column. You’ll never get anywhere. Plus, a lot of your assumptions about what you need might change once people start buying and using what you’ve made. A true “need to ahve” is whatever will make your idea fall apart if you don’t have it.
Scaling down an idea that you can start right now puts the focus on helping people immediately with what you have available right now and are resourceful enough to provide, like a sort of business. Your “scope” of influence can potentially increase to become industry-wide, your tiny “ripple” having turned into a massive wave. Basically, the most qualified and best-suited person makes the decisions for eacg specific project. (Key word : Scope is range or field. Ripple is movement of water)
Determining the Right Mind-Set
To succeed as a company as one, you have to have a real underlying purpose. Your why matters as an unseen but ever-present element that drives your business. Your purpose is more than just a pretty-sounding mission statement on your website ; it’s how your business acts and represents itself. And it’s what your business sometimes places above even profits.
Your purpose is the lens thought which you filer all your business decisions, from the tiny to the monumental. We’re talking about who you work with, what you offer, where you focus your time and energy, and even how you define your audience.
If your business is fully aligned with your purpose, you’ll be more motivated to keep at it, even during the tought moments; your workforce will turn over less, since employees won’t have to leave their values at home when they head to work; and your customers will become and remain loyal.
Defining your purpose has more to do with your personal values and ethics than with business plans or marketing strategies. You can’t fake your purpose. Your gut and your customers simply won’t let you. And really, why would you want to? You’ll get so much more enjoyment and satisfaction from running your business in alignment with your purpose. If you don’t feel a deep conneciton to your purpose, no one elso will feel it either.
WHEN PASSION IS A PROBLEM
Purpose and passion are quite different. When you focus on solving problems or on making a difference, passion may follow, because you’re actually involved in the work you’re doing instead of just dreaming that you might be passionate about something.
We believe that we need to be craftpeople, focused on getting better and better at how we use our skils, in order to be valuable to our company and its customers. The craftperson mind-set keeps you focused on what you can offer the world; the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you.
It has shown that engaging work helps you develop passion, not the other way around.
Engaging work comprises 4 key components: ①Clearly defined assignment, ②Tasks you excel at, ③Performance feedback, and ④work autonomy. (Key word : Autonomy is self independence)
Most of these speakers neglect to mention that they didn’t just “willy-nilly” jump; rather, they did a small jump first to make sure they could land it (that is, they made sure there was enough demand for their offerings) and not drown once they hit the water. (Key word : willy-nilly =uncertain power to take action in negative meaning)
When I first tried back in the 1990s to pivot into business consulting without having any related, built-up skills, I had almost no “bites” from clients. I was young (and naive) and thought that sincce I had helped design a “handful” of websites, I understood how all businesses everywhere work. Consulting seemd far more fun than just designing websites, so I found the “courage” to start promoting that as a service. The problem was that I was only just starting my journey as a designer and hadn’t come close to building up the necessary skils to consult for other businesses. (Key word : Bite is reaction. Handful is Qty to catch by one hand. Courage is positive & brave decition)
Engaging work, not entitiled work, can be anything from collecting garbage to serving cofee, to coaching billionaries, to becoming a company of one inside a large organization. (Key word : Garbage is rubbish)
Passion in work come from first crafting a valuable skill set and mastering your work. This is great news, because it means you no longer have to beat yourself up for not finding your true, hidden passions. Instead, you can simply get to work.
There might be a positive outcome to “seizing” them, but they always come at a cost — in terms of time, attention, or resources. No matter how hard you try, you can’t scale the amount of time in your days. And since you can’t somehow buy more hours, you need to find ways to use those hours better. (Key word : seizing = catching.)
Curiously, up until 1950S, the word “priority” was almost always singular in use — it wasn’t until later that the misguided beliefe that multitasking is a good idea took hold, along with “priorities” (plural). A Microsoft Research study found that “attempting” to focus on more than one priority at a time reduce productivity by as much as 40 percent, which is the “cognitive” equivalent of “pulling an all-nighter“. (Key word : attempting is similar to trying or challenging. cognitive is similar to recognize. pulling an all-nighter means doing something over nigh without sleep)
In terms of productivity, I believe that the main differenceis motivation and “momentum“. Working on a high-functioning team, you’re naturally playing off othe members to accomplish your piece of project, and that keeps you wanting to move thing’s forward by focusing on your part. When you are a company of one without a team or employees, you have to “generate” your own momentum and motivation to get work done. It’s up to set your schedule, manage obligations, and avoid “distractions“. (Key word : momentum is things are proceeding speedy. generate is power to act to create something new. distraction is outside factor to disturb you)
Company of one need to become adept at “single-tasking” —doing one thing for an extended period of time without distraction. This capacity helps you focus on the right tasks, do them faster, and do them with less stress. Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Informations at the University of California, found that for every “interruption“, it takes an average of twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds to fully get back to the task. Fewer distractions means speedier work. (Key word : single-tasking means concentrating one thing. interruption is similar to intercept on conversation or communicaiton)
“Articulating” to people requesting your time what you can and cannot becomes key. (Key word : articulating is expressing clearly)
Since most of us aren’t even aware of how much time daily job maintenance takes up, it suggests doing a productivity audit once or twice a year: for a week or two, record what tasks you’re working on, for how long, and where the big distractions lie. With this record, you can reapprotion your time more appropriately or even create a “stop doing” list —such as stay off social medies, “forgo” daily meeting, or available on a chat for one hour instead of eight. (Key word : forgo is stop)
To combat this, I take several months off from interviews, calls, and meetings each year to create ne products or write books without interruption. Being engaged in deep and focused work, because I’ve cut myself off from communication and availability to others, creates efficiency. Also, “batching” similar tasks allows me to do more work in less time. (Key word : batching is managing or disposing)
As a company of one that achieves ownership over your schedule and how long you allow yourself to work, you can be overloaded with the “sheer number” of tasks you need to do keep your businesses running. Researcher John Pencavel from Stanford University says that if you atart to define your productivity in physical terms, you can see that your ability to focus drastically “diminishes” after fifty-five hours a week. So adding anything more to your schedule that takes longer will not be productive. The social badge of honor for always being busy and always working has no rewards past “bragging” rights. It also has no place in the company-of-one mind set. What you should be bragging about is figuring out how to get your work done quicker and more productivily. Perhapes we need to determine what “enough” is for our “particular” schedule and then “ruthlessly stick” to and defend that. (Key word : sheer numbder is completle big amount. diminish is down or reduce. bragging is similar to self-satisfaction. particular is similar to special or original. ruthlessly stick means very strict order)
chapter 6 : Personality Matters
What did change was that I gradually became okay with sharing who I am and using my differences strategically. Personality — the authentic you that traditional business has taught you to suppress under the guise of “professionalism” — can be your biggest edge over the competition when you’re a company of one. What’s even better is that while skills and expertise can be replaced, it’s “damn near” impossible to replicate someone’s personality and style. Especially in a company of one, where you aren’t the largest player in your niche and probably not the cheapest, using your quirks and standing for something can be exactly how and why you gain customers’ attention. (Key word : professionalism is high level mind to achieve own job to gain mney. damn near = mostly)
What do you want your brand to exude? Toughness? Sophistication? Excitement? Sincerity? Luxury? Competence? (Key word : competence is similar to capability or skill)
I found that keeping my business small makes it easier to show both my staff and customers my commiment to quality and personal service.
Don’t confuse the personality of your brand with “acting the part” — instead, the idea is to “showcase” those aspects of who you naturally are as they relate to building fascination with your intended audience. I have always been focused on creating products if true quality, so my company works hard to showcase that aspect oof its personality. (Key word : acting the part means play role on the stage as entertainer. showcase=display)
THE ATTENTION ECONOMY
The new “attention-as-currency” may stem from how the world has changed since the industrial revolution, which had led to sellers making all the rules. Now buyers dictate what they want, how they want it, and when. And if they aren’t happy with one seller, they simply take to the internet and post their dissatisfaction.
It contends that the key is to unlearn being boring. It’s easy to forget or lose interest in information, but it’s much harder to forget strong emotion.
You can do this by allowing your business to have some aspect of your own “innate” personality or “quirks“. (Key word : innate=inborn, original character. quirks is strange character, different from other people)
In an intgerview Sally did with Marie Forleo, she spoke about the tendency of large companies to be the vanila ice cream of their market — they project a personality that’s universally acceptable, but “bland“. For a company of one, being vanila isn’t going to allow you or your work to stand out. Companies of one have to be the pistachio ice cream of their market. For better or worse, people either absolutely love pistachio or can’t stand its flavor and “weird” green color. For its loyal fans, pistachio ice cream stands out, demands attention, and charges a pemium, (Key word : bland is mild or tastless=no taste. weird = strange)
Fascination is the response when you take what makes you interesting,unique, “quirky“, and different and communicate it. When you start to understand how the world sees your business, you can amplify that understanding by featuring the specific “traits” that make you, you. When you own and “harness” aspects of your personality strategically, you can use them as a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace—like an artisanl bucket of pistachio ice cream that people will glandly pay $25 for (instead of gpoingwith the $4 tub of vanila). (Key word : quirky is similar strange.
NEUTRALITY CAN BE COSTLY
It can be scary to draw that line in the sand — especially when it’s your business and “livelihood“. doing so immediately alienates certain people or entire groups. But taking a stand is important because you become a “beacon” for those individuals who are your people, your tribe, and your audience. When you “hoist” your viewpoint up like a flag, people know where to find you; it becomes a “rallying point“. Displaying your perspective lets “prospective” (and current) customers know that you don’t just sell your products or services. You do it for a specific reason. (Key word : livelihood = occupation or profession. beacon=signal. hoist is lift-up. rallypoint is a palce to gather. perspective = viewpoint)
Products can be changed or adjusted if they aren’t functioning, but rallying point “align” with the values and meaning behind what yuo do. These bold statements are impossible to ignore and make clear that your work is more than work, that you have a serious reason for doing it in the first palce. (Key word : align is similar to coordinate or harmonize.)
captuer 7: The One Customer
It’s a great feeling when an employee or bussiness owner goes out of their way to be helpful. There’s something quiter memorable about a personal touch, or a business taking ownership of a problem and going out of it’s way to fix it.
Ruby Newell Legner, a twenty-five-year student of customer happines, found that only 4 percent of customers actually voice their dissatisfaction to a business: a whopping 91 percent of dissatisfied customers simply don’t ever return. you can forgo vapid user expansion at any price and concentrate instead on retaining, pleasing, and helping your customers. In the long run, this approach costs far less and aids your company far more.
As companies of one, we are very much in the people-serving business. It’s critica that we listen to each of our customers and take full ownership in making sure they are pleased with our service level and then successful in their own lives. Customer service is a huge differentiating factor in why people choose the palces where they want to spend their money. If you serve your company: basically an unpaid sales force that reduces your need to hire more staff.
Today’s wave of customer service as practiced by some organizations — and it should be the customer service delivered by all companies of one — focuses on emotion and ease. A study from McKinsey showed that 70 percent of buying experiences are based more on how they are treated and less on the “tangibles” of a product. The feeling of being treated exceptionally well can only increase in the contex of a second purchase or subscription renewal, because the customer has already developed a feeling about how the first purchase were or how any support requests were handles. (Key word : tangibles is invisible value. )
Researched done by Small BizTreands found that a staggering 83 percent of new business somes from “word-of-mouth referrals”. (Key word : word-of-mouth referrals is inctoduing something to closed friend to recommend to ourchse it)
Feferrals work becasue they build trust by proxy. A referral is credible because someone you trust is telling you that they trust a certain company or product. And since you trust the person telling you, that sense of trust is instant and immediate with the company or product as well.
LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING : A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY
Kate Leggett of Forester Research found that keeping customers happy and helping them succeed reduce “churn“, increase the “likelihood” of repeat business, and even help in winning new business. In the word, when your customers win, you do too. In truth, your customers don’t care if your business is profitable — but if you help them become profitable too, they’ll hever leave you. Helping your customers as individuals requires as much “empathy” and care as it does to sell whatever it is you’re offering them. You have to be able to understand your customers and their needs to serve them efficiently. (Key word : churn is similar to decrease. likelihood is probability or possibility. empathy is similar to sympathy but different point is feel the mind of person objectively. )
The more you understand your customers — their needs, wants, motivations, and desires — the more you can feel with them and the better you can serve them. This kind of customer service is more than just the lip-service corporate speak of “you matter to us”. This customer service that takes specific actions and puts strategies into place that begin with listening and move toward understanding.
There’s a common “misconception” that empathy is for weak, nonprofit, hippie-lifestyle business, (It refers to the countercultural movement of rebellious youth that emerged in the 1960s. The hippie culture emphasized values such as peace, non-violence, love, self-expression, environmentalism, and communal living.) but in fact it’s a most useful too to drive real profit. (Key word : misconception is similar to misunderstanding)
The first step in treating customers empathetical is listening to their needs; with this knowledge, we can drive innovations or new product idea. Eric von HIppel of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced a substantial body of research showing that a resounding number of profitable innovations within 60 percent.
Understanding customers requires not just providing exceptional handling of their support requests but then gaining a bigger picture idea about the types of questions and requests that are coming in. Even in a company of one, it’s important to recognize the general theme of each request and to manage it in a way that makes patterns and “clues” in the data “discerniable” later on. It helps to see patterns by organizing all feedback and suggestions in a general location. For example, if you find that support requests are primarily on a certain topic, maybe you could do a better job of teaching users about the topic. And if a “handful” of requests on a certain can be the basis of your next user-led innovation initiative. (Key word : clues=hints. discernible=evident. handful=few or small number)
SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMER BUILD SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES
When a company looks at customers as impersomal transactions or orders, it’s easy for that relationship to develop into one focused on how much money can be made from them with the least amount of moeny spent. But a company that believes customers represent relationships that can be both mutually beneficial and long-term succeeds when its customers succeed.
Finally, to the most helpful to your customers, you sometimes have to look beyond the problems they’re presenting to you. The underlying reason customers are asking for help is often not obvious; sometimes they’re asking for a certain “feature” without even being aware that’s what they’re doing. For example, when I was doing web design, clients would often want me to design a site that, in their words, would simply look great. Over time, though, I realized that wasn’t the main reason most customers wanted to hire me: what they really wanted was a site that would look great but also generate more revenue. (Key word : feature is aspect or function)
WHEN THINGS GO WRONG (AND) THINGS ARE GOING TO GO WRONG
It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Every business has so many moving parts,so many places to “interact” with customers, and is typically so reliant on at least a few suppliers or partners that mistakes can and will sometimes happen. Trying to avoid mistakes at all costs, or “pretending” that mistakes never happen, is not a “viable strategy“. More realistic is having a plan for when they do happen. (Key word : interact means affecting each other. pretending is similar to camoufalge or hide negative issue. Viable is similar to feasible, strategy to make it achieve)
You ahve to own your mistakes –even those caused by someone else –by taking personal responsibility for them before someone else blames you for them. The first step is apologizing like a real, “empathetic” human, not a corporate PT-sounding tobot. Customers don’t expect perfect — they just expect problems to be dealt with fairly, empathertically, and quickly. (Key word : adjective of empathy, and meaning is compassionate or sympathy. )
Acknowledgement of fault is powerful. It shows empathy, a willigness to own the problem, and a desire to then fix.
Companies of one need to turn compalints into opportunities to do better and use them to “attempt” to build closer relationships with the customers who “stick around“. (Key word : attempt is try and effort. stick around means staying in one palce)
YOUR WORD IS A CONTRACT
What does it take for a company to keep its promise? And why do so many busiensses fail to keep their promises? The first strategy is to make fewer and better commitmentsto customers. A businessman that believes it should “underpromise and overdeliver” sometimes fails to even simply deliver on par with expectations. Next, a company that isn’t tracking its commitments — for example, through support system software or by nothing promise was. Finally, having actual processes in place to meet these commitments is required; assuming that such processes won’t be “relevant” until sometimes in the future will only lead to broken promises. By focusing on these three strategies, companies can learn how to better keep promises to their customers. A brokwn promise “balloons outward”, like our ever-expanding universe: You “ruin” not just your relationship with one potential client or contract but your chance to work with everyone elase they know. (Key word : underpromise and overdeliver means promissing small thing to perform bigger result. relevant is similar to related. balloon outward means expanding outward. ruin is similar to destroy.)
CAPTER 8 : Scalable System
If the point of a company of one is to question growth and challenge scale, the answer might sometimes be that growth is in fact required —when it aligns with your overall purpose. When growth in profit, customers, or reach is needed, however, companies of one can look to simple and repeatable systems to facilitate scale, with no need for more employees or resources.
Their team, even at nearly $10 million in yearly revenue, remains small: besides Marshall and Jon, who run the business and handle marketing, there’s a head of operations, four support staff (two of whome are part-time), a CFO, and a developer. When they require more help, they hire freelancers and contractors and outsource until it’s cheaper to bring the job in-house.
Activist Naomi Klein, however, globalization has had negative effects on workers, including poor conidtions, low salaries, and unfair tretment. Klein believes that a new movement, one very much in line with the mind-set of companies of one, is breaking away from global brands with questionable morals that focus on miximizing profits over proplr. anf that this movement will shift businesses toward slower, smaller, or on-demand strategies, amking them more “fair” in all senses of the word.
COLLABORATION AS A SCALABLE SYSTEM
Working for yourself doesn’t necessarily mean working by yourself. Even if your company of one us just you, there are still times when you’ll need to collaborate with others — from contractors to partners to clients. If your company of one is a small team or exists within an organization, even more layers of collaboration are required. BUt collaboration is a oduble-edged sword: technology aloows us to easily connet with each other in real time, but at the expense of focused, deep work.