Some years ago I was invited to develop an industry segmentation plan for an online marketplace. Essentially, the sponsor-owners of the marketplace wanted to focus their marketing efforts specifically on certain industries that they believed would be interested in their offering.
In the absence of information about the features of their marketplace (which would come after I had proven my ability and won the account), I suggested that the online marketplace concept was just too new and that they couldn’t (or, perhaps more accurately, shouldn’t) afford to make a mistake based on their own assumptions about who would be interested.
Note: To put this conversation in perspective, this was a crazy time when the World Wide Web was relatively new and everyone was eager to discover ways to use it: sell products and services, buy products and services, connect to customers and prospects, etc.
Actually, as I think about it, that time was a lot like … now.
My proposed alternative was that they launch the marketplace and do some broad promotion. Then, pay attention to whom and what comes to the table and proceed accordingly.
In effect, it’s cheap market research that—if you can tolerate the suspense—opens up the widest range of possibilities.
The sponsor-owners moved on. Organic growth is interesting to some, and scary to others. For some it takes too long; their funders might not support it; it’s counterintuitive. Why wouldn’t you want to guide your market?
Recently I sat with some friends who are trying to decide in what direction to take their business. Grow? Contract? Expand their existing product line? Introduce new services? As we talked, it became apparent that they have a lot of options. And, none of them requires a tremendous amount of financial capital to pursue, at least not at the outset.
The electronic marketplace came to mind, and I related the story. We talked about the potential of trying a few things and seeing what transpires. We were all very excited about the possibilities, and left our meeting feeling good about our conversation. More important, my friends had an action plan to pursue, one that energized them and felt expansive, not constricting.
If the story appeals to you, consider this litmus test for employing an organic growth model:
1. The players should feel that there is little risk; i.e., that whatever the return on their investment will be acceptable (even if there is no return but information). Alternatively, the players should feel sufficiently excited to be able to tolerate the risk. This strategy will be, for a lot of people, all about discovering what is fun and rewarding to do;
2. There must be a way to measure growth and observe trends;
3. There should be a commitment to course-correction if required;
4. There needs to be patience, especially if you are in start-up mode;
5. All of the parties involved must define and agree upon definitions of: risk; measure; growth; patience.
I’ve been trying to think of a good story about a company or organization that thought its market was X but actually the market grew in such a way that it turned out to be Y. I will continue to work on this. If you think of one that you would like me to publish, please contact me and I’ll write an addendum to this piece.
