Would the former discount variety retailer Silly Solly’s be as successful today as it was 15 years ago?
The TV commercials were hard to miss, if not impossible, each reasonable size town from Mackay to Sunshine Coast had at least one store and with a few dollars you had numerous buying options.
Back then though there were only 3 commercial TV stations, internet was mainly for geeks and the major chain stores did little to stop Silly Solly’s growing market share, initially thinking it just an annoyance that would go away.
Now with 12 commercial TV stations, pay TV, Netflix, multi-screening; numerous ecommerce internet sites and a market share battle between Woolworths, Wesfarmers (Coles, K-Mart, etc.), Aldi, Costco; where a 1% change can see the Chief Marketing Officer being either terminated or headhunted it is a different market now.
How does a new business or an existing locally owned business now just survive let alone build a viable market share?
Difficult yes, impossible no; consider the rise of the micro-breweries.
As mentioned last week innovation and disruption in business are now essential tools to enable greater economic and job growth.
As micro-breweries demonstrate though the innovation and disruption doesn’t have to be like the invention of the computer, (which was arguably first envisioned back in 1843).
Think globally, act locally – is also often mentioned as the needed mind set for today’s entrepreneur, including Dr. Terry McCosker of Carbon Link operating out of Yeppoon whose thinking on carbon capture and storage could lead to the type of global success Rockhampton born Graeme Wood, founder of Wot If has attained.
Building a product for global consumption while working out of one’s garage does though appear to contradict the success of the local micro-breweries concept!
Not all entrepreneurs possess the technical (or digital) expertise that they utilise in developing their business. They have the vision then source the resources including people to help achieve it. Very few entrepreneurs can do it all alone.
Sharing knowledge and creative collaboration has been the major factor in the development of most innovative and disruptive advances in the past 100 years. Including the personal computer and internet.
The entrepreneur of today can’t just do what the ones before (or what they once) did. The Silly Solly’s model of 15 years ago would not be as successful now. To simply expect the same result would now be a sign of insanity.
If it ain’t broke, break it. The shift from ‘don’t fix it’ to ‘break it’ is what business now needs to make to succeed.
Thus if a list of Capricorn’s top 40 entrepreneurs under 40 was to be made I believe overseeing a different continually evolving customer centric business model will be one characteristic, but also different will be their active desire for creative collaboration. Seeking and sharing knowledge not just with customers, but other businesses including competitors.
Local businesses need to adopt this creative collaborative spirit to effectively compete. Working with, cross promoting each other while always implementing different, better ways of meeting their customers needs will ultimately prove to be the most effective business growth strategy.
Yeppoon has Shop 4703, what is Rockhampton’s equivalent?