advice HOW TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION by Seth Godin
How do you decide what to make next?
Over the last few decades, I've probably launched 500 products and services. And I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about how organizations go about deciding what to make and what to shelve. How do you decide where to invest your scarce people and promotional resources?
If there’s anything that can have a significant impact on you and your team, it’s this decision. If marketing is the product, then choosing which product to market is your most important moment. Here are some of the reasons I’ve used (and have seen others use) to make this decision:
It’s something a major customer wants
It’s something our technology can do easily
Someone with a lot of power and authority in the organization really wants it
It’ll be fun
If we don’t do it, our competition will
It’s important to our community or society
It's cheap
It's easy
It will increase our margins
It appeals to our competition’s base, thus growing our market share
It's Bob's turn
It locks in our base, making it less likely they'll be stolen by the competition
We didn’t launch this one last time, so its turn has come around
It will make us look smart
It’s the next logical item
I love it
It responds to an RFP
It will burnish our reputation
It adds a feature that our CEO really, really wants
We have a salesforce to support, and this fills in their grid
Our investors tell us that this is a must-have
It will increase traffic to our site
I can sell it to customer X
It’s a copy/improvement over something our competition is doing
Our current stuff doesn’t meet regulations and this does
The critics will respect us
We've come this far and quitting now costs too much
A huge market dominator promises to promote it if we build it
A big retailer says they'll carry it
A key employee is bored and this will keep them busy
We have unused capacity in the plant
Over the last few decades, I've probably launched 500 products and services. And I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about how organizations go about deciding what to make and what to shelve. How do you decide where to invest your scarce people and promotional resources?
If there’s anything that can have a significant impact on you and your team, it’s this decision. If marketing is the product, then choosing which product to market is your most important moment. Here are some of the reasons I’ve used (and have seen others use) to make this decision:
It’s something a major customer wants
It’s something our technology can do easily
Someone with a lot of power and authority in the organization really wants it
It’ll be fun
If we don’t do it, our competition will
It’s important to our community or society
It's cheap
It's easy
It will increase our margins
It appeals to our competition’s base, thus growing our market share
It's Bob's turn
It locks in our base, making it less likely they'll be stolen by the competition
We didn’t launch this one last time, so its turn has come around
It will make us look smart
It’s the next logical item
I love it
It responds to an RFP
It will burnish our reputation
It adds a feature that our CEO really, really wants
We have a salesforce to support, and this fills in their grid
Our investors tell us that this is a must-have
It will increase traffic to our site
I can sell it to customer X
It’s a copy/improvement over something our competition is doing
Our current stuff doesn’t meet regulations and this does
The critics will respect us
We've come this far and quitting now costs too much
A huge market dominator promises to promote it if we build it
A big retailer says they'll carry it
A key employee is bored and this will keep them busy
We have unused capacity in the plant
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