Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?
Business strategy comes in right and wrong varieties
by Lorman Lundsten and Mike Hoffman In the March 2003 issue of Upsize, Kim Garretson told entrepreneurs to “squish the strategy bug on the pavement.”
As teachers of strategic planning who frequently advise entrepreneurs, we initially cringed at this advice. After all, we might be considered to be priests in the temple of strategy.
Yet after a careful reading of Garretson’s argument, we found that he was not as negative about strategy as we first thought and that there are some points where we might agree.
The beauty and utility of strategy, like so many other real things in life, seems to depend on your vantage point. We were reminded of another classic statement on an issue with two faces, one distinctly positive and one distinctly negative, the swan song of a Texas legislator more than 50 years ago.
Noah Sweat Jr. was a young politician in the middle of the last century. He was elected to the Texas legislature in 1947, and at the end of his term had decided not to run again. Texas was in the midst of a drive for prohibition, and the polarized factions demanded that the young legislator take a side in the battle.
Perhaps because of his speech taking a “wet” and a “dry” position in quick succession, Mr. Sweat was known as “Soggy” Sweat to his fellow Texans. He went from the Texas legislature to a successful career as a lawyer, judge and college professor. His final words on the topic of whiskey are well known to those who teach logic and rhetoric and others who study difficult issues.
He so defined his position on prohibition:
“If you mean whiskey, the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pits of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.
“However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning…then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.
This is my position, and as always, I refuse to be compromised on matters of principle.”
Perhaps the lessons put in sharp contrast by this speech can be extended to the world of strategy. If we paraphrase this argument, we might end up with this:
If you mean strategy, the mind-numbing, time-wasting exercise in predicting the unpredictable that perverts the analytic skills of the entrepreneur in an endless loop of fear-generating, impotent, unproductive introspection; if you mean the paralysis-by-analysis that stills the wheels of industry; if you mean that activity that deprives society of the benefits of robust new goods and services for the years spent in futile planning, then we are against it with every fiber of our beings.
If you mean by strategy the exercise that focuses and defines new ideas; the activity which makes whole the entrepreneur’s thinking by providing a definition of the offering to the market; the exercise that improves the odds of recouping the entrepreneur’s investment; the process that stimulates frank and honest communication and criticism; the investment of time and energy that provides learning for those who follow, we are absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.
From one angle, strategy development seems to have few benefits and an enormous cost. From another viewpoint, strategic planning can pay off handsomely for all who engage in it, large companies and small.
No cringing
Kim Garretson noted that he cringed at the mention of strategy. He saw it as a process that delays or destroys success for most companies. He notes that lucky foresight has a better batting average than planning or strategy development in the new economy.
We see that his recommendation to “swim in the pool of possibilities,” guided by reactions from a carefully chosen set of advisers (“the best Rolodexes in your niche”) is in fact, a strategy in itself. He is advising an incremental strategy where the entrepreneur reacts to the possibilities of the market, and then actively listens to the market and a set of knowledgeable advisers. It seems to us that Garretson actually recommends a minimalist, incremental, active-listening strategy.
We think that strategy even in a minimalist fashion has other features to recommend it: Numbers need to be pushed. Weak ideas need to be improved or abandoned at an early stage so that stronger ideas can be supported. It seems unfortunate to recommend that entrepreneurs take their ideas directly to market when a degree of thoughtful planning can improve the likelihood of success. With the cost of failure being so high opportunities for increasing the chances for victory should be seized.
The key strategy choices for marketers involve the target market, defining the key customers we hope to serve; and position, defining how we want to be seen by the target market. Garretson suggests that entrepreneurs develop their elevator sales pitch and ask key advisers to run their concept by others. We agree with this, but we note that this captures the essence of strategy. The elevator pitch captures the position, and the pool of advisers would presumably run the idea past the target market.
We see more strategic choices that need to be thought about, however. Marketers have developed the concept of a marketing mix that captures most of the choices that are traditionally made: The marketing mix, or four Ps, consists of the choices made concerning Product, Price, Promotion and Place. But that could be the subject of another article.
There is a position between the paralysis of analysis and complete hip-shooting. Solutions that have worked for others tend to work again. Considering possible actions at some level of detail does not preclude the swimming in the pool of possibilities that Garretson suggests.
We advocate a middle ground that incorporates some useful, flexible planning and captures some of the systemic detail without binding the entrepreneur to a plan that may not be changed or wasting time in making decisions at a finer level of detail than can be wisely supported.
