Sublime

This is a different kind of prompt, courtesy of the management guru Peter Drucker. The idea is to catch the leading players in a market off balance by turning their strength into a weakness.

In a story, audiences must always know who the hero is, what the hero wants, who the hero has to defeat to get what they want, what tragic thing will happen if the hero doesn’t win, and what wonderful thing will happen if they do.

Michael Porter has a name for this syndrome. He calls it competition to be the best. It is, he will tell you, absolutely the wrong way to think about competition. If you start out with this flawed idea of how competition works, it will lead you inevitably to a flawed strategy. And that will lead to mediocre performance.

The factory creneau One common mistake in looking for creneaus is filling a hole in the factory rather than one in the mind.

Peter Drucker and his

The essential ingredient in securing the leadership position is getting into the mind first. The essential ingredient in keeping that position is reinforcing the original concept. Coca-Cola is the standard by which all others are judged. In contrast, everything else is an imitation of “the real thing.”

In a story, audiences must always know who the hero is, what the hero wants, who the hero has to defeat to get what they want, what tragic thing will happen if the hero doesn’t win, and what wonderful thing will happen if they do.

Dr. Seuss’s management masterpiece Yertle the Turtle.

I would try to limit my “lead generation” (broadcasting) activities to about 10 percent, leaving 25 to 40 percent for courting specific prospects.