Becoming Live 2.0: Develop a Niche Part 2

I’m going to ask you a question, and when you read it, don’t think.  Just answer.

What airline has great prices, reliability and a good customer service experience?

Most of you said either Southwest or Jet Blue, depending on where you live and what kinds of flights you usually take.  A stray one or two of you may have said Virgin or Virgin America just to be contrary, which is ok around here.

I bet none of you said any of the following:  United, Delta, Northwest, American, or Continental.

Why?  On some routes, those big airlines match SWA or Jet Blue’s fares.  And surely many of the hard-working men and women at those traditional airlines do a good job.  After all, Sully flies for US Air!

You said that for the same reason I did:  because that’s what they do.  That’s what they’re known for and that’s what they focus on.

For example, did you know that SWA only flies 737s?  Just the one type of plane.  And there are several good reasons:  it means all their pilots and crew are fully trained on any plane in the fleet; it means the planes are big enough to fly half-way across the country with a good passenger load, but not so big they become fuel hogs; it means all the service equipment inside and outside the plane fits every plane.

In other words, it all helps costs stay low and service stay good.

A niche is more than a marketing slogan and “target audience.”  It’s what you live.  I read once that SWA pilots have learned a million little tricks for saving fuel in flight that don’t effect the passenger’s experience.

A niche is who you are, head to toe.  If you’re the owner of a real niche, you’re like that when the spotlight is on you and when you’re sitting at home, trimming your toe nails.  You can’t be caught being inconsistent because it’s who you are.

Now, another quick question.  Don’t think just answer:

Who is your organization?

We talked in the previous piece about unearthing the ‘good stuff’ about your organization.  Do it.  Talk it over.  It’ll take a while, but when you separate what’s the important good stuff from the stuff that just happens to be what you’re doing, narrow it down.

Narrow it way down.

To one thing.

What if SWA was about low fares and a good customer experience AND a great way to send packages via air AND the most luxurious way for the business traveller to travel AND the best way to earn miles that can be redeemed for the widest range of goods AND…well, you get what I’m saying.

If they were all that, they wouldn’t be SWA.  They’d be American Airlines!  And, like American, they’d probably be flirting with bankruptcy pretty much all the time.

One thing.

Here at Goldstar, that one thing is simple:  helping people get out to live entertainment more.  That’s it.  If it fits into that goal, we might do it.  If it doesn’t, we won’t.

No organization is too big to have focus.  SWA may be a “niche” player, but they’re worth more on the stock market than Delta, American, United, and Continental.

COMBINED.

So here’s what you do.

I.  Get everybody together in your organization.  Do it in pieces.  Make cross-functional discussion groups and start asking people what is special about the organization.  Have each group come up with three key things that are essential to the spirit of what your organization does.

2.  Do this 10 or 12 times with different mixes of employee groups and then compare the lists of three.  Which items do you keep seeing?  Move them to a “final” list.

3.  Get your real “culture carriers” together for a knock-down, drag out discussion of what it is at the heart of the organization that you can do and deliver on that’s special both to your customers and to the people who work there.

4.  Settle on a single idea.  It could be “turning old tv shows into live performances starring some of the original actors from those shows.”  It could be “staging performances of great new American plays.”  It could be “the bloodiest tough man contest in the Denver area.”  It could be just about anything, as long as you can deliver it and live it, you can develop an audience for it, and you can easily explain it to somebody.

5.  Tear everything else down.  This is the hard part.  Anything that doesn’t serve that purpose has to go.  This whole process can take some time–maybe a year or more, but you’ve got to keep the forward momentum.  If you’re audience is primarily people under 40, do you really need a phone sales operation?  Probably not.  If you create a glossy program for each show, but your focus is on producing a new play every week, maybe a cheaper, faster-moving medium makes sense for the program.  If you’ve got a development group focused on corporate donors, maybe you should replace them with people who have expertise in fund-raising froma  large number of smaller donors.

In other words, the new focus will not help if you don’t make the courageous deletions that have to accompany it.  You’ll find yourself saying, “Yes, we want to do that cool new focus, but we also want to do…”

It won’t work.  Don’t try to be more things.  Try to be what you are, but in more ways.

Here’s another thought experiment:

You can pick the pilot for your next flight, and your choices are  Pilot A, a distinguished flier with 30 years of service, who also consults for airlines on flight safety; or Pilot B, an equally distinguished flier with 30 years of service, who also consults to people who want to customize their vintage hot rods and sometimes gives a little financial advice and makes really great ice sculptures.

Pilot A is Chesley Sullenberger.

Pilot B seems like a cool dude and he’s a good pilot, but I don’t know if I’d want him the one ditching my plane in the Hudson!