What Matters Most When Growing Your Business
I’ve had this article from Joel ripped out of Inc. and on my desk for months because I’ve been meaning to link to it. The takeaway is this:
When in doubt, make your product more compelling. All of Fog Creek’s affiliate marketing ideas, coupons, discounts, direct-mail pieces, catalog ads, and everything else we spent time on — none of this was as good a use of our time as simply doing what we loved best anyway: creating useful software.
I know that seems to be clear all on its own, but trust me: you need to read the whole article to really comprehend what he’s saying. If you’re trying to grow your business, there are few pieces of advice as critical as this.
Ron
March 11, 2010
at 2:49 am
You’re right. Reading the whole article really explained it. But I guess it depends on what you’re trying to sell. They’re in the software business so it’s true that no amount of coupons, discounts or affiliates can save them if they’re not going to make new softwares.
Shane
March 11, 2010
at 11:37 am
The same principle holds if your business is your website, though, as it is for most of us. If we focus all our time on driving traffic and trying to squeeze more revenue out of it, we’re constantly going to be at a disadvantage to the competitor who spends most of his time making his site better.