Opportunity Goggles

IN THIS ISSUE

Selling more wine to wine tasters
I never promised you a digital asset garden
50 first dates in the Texas Hill Country
An asset deficiency is your problem

My wife and I took some time away to go to the Texas Hill Country and do a wine tasting or two. We’re no strangers to the area or to wine tastings.

Something that doesn’t happen after we go to wine tastings is an email or direct mail follow-up from the winery. Why?

I’ll get to that in a minute.

On the drive out to the Hill Country, I was finishing an email conversation with someone I’d reached out to to see if I could help them. Small business, probably just him. He politely declined any help.

On my way out of the conversation, I suggested he run a “thank you” campaign.

“What’s that?” he asked.

I explained it to him in reply, and he thanked me, and that was that.

You Promised Me Digital Assets

I think some readers expected these newsletters to contain detailed dissections on how to code up integrations and get into the deep technical details for automations.

As I think about it, I’ve talked more about marketing and mindsets than anything else.

I feel a little bit of disappointment welling up in you all.

Maybe I’ll get really technical at some point, but it seems like those are the less interesting directions to go for now. What you really need right now is the ability to spot opportunity.

If you can spot opportunity, you can figure out how to build whatever you need or get someone to build whatever you need. But if you cannot even “see” opportunity, your to-do list will remain less interesting.

But let me circle back to where I started.

50 First Dates

Have you seen the aforementioned movie?

This guy meets a girl, but she has memory problems due to an accident, so he makes her fall in love with him every single day.

It eventually works, but he does it the hard way.

And he often fails hard along the way!

At least this all plays out in Hawaii.

Nearly every winery we visit is that girl.

You show up and want to continue where you left off, but she doesn’t remember you and you have to start all over again.

I want a relationship, but she (the winery) just doesn’t have the ability to conduct one.

And eventually, I move on.

And so do most of the others; it’s just too damn hard. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if someone else did the pursuing once in a while.

What’s Missing?

So the two stories I started with are about small businesses that don’t have a good follow-up system.

In each case, customers bought from them, but the relationship never was nurtured and taken to the next level.

In the case of the winery, the ultimate goal is to sell more wine. Ideally, a steady stream of wine throughout the year. And this is usually done through memberships which require customers to buy wine periodically.

Most winery members join right after a wine tasting. But a fair number return and eventually join after more visits. It just takes so long.

What’s missing is a methodical follow-up from a winery using whatever contact means they are able to collect in that initial wine tasting. Maybe some creative offers too.

That’s an opportunity many businesses don’t see.

And it follows that the follow-up system is an asset that most businesses don’t have.

An Asset Deficiency

A few years ago, I stumbled upon this book, “24 Assets: Create a digital, scalable, valuable and fun business that will thrive in a fast-changing world” by Daniel Priestley, a prolific author of books on entrepreneurship.

One of his quotes that stuck with me is:

Most problems are symptoms of not having an asset in place.

And forever thereafter, I always looked at businesses I’ve been at through a lens of assets. I would even share those ideas in those same terms with my colleagues.

You never know what people really think about you, but I believed that they thought I was weird. I felt like I was way ahead of them. But whatever.

The winery and the guy I was conversing with were missing the asset of a follow-up program that would routinely increase their revenue and profits.

Put it in place, dial it in, monitor it, and it’ll return the effort investment many times over.

People, that’s a digital asset.

That’s a Google Doc or a Loom video. It’s a digital standard operating procedure (SOP). And maybe some related tracking spreadsheets or a dashboard. Whatever is needed to maintain the value and performance of the asset.

I want to make one last point.

Wear the Goggles

There is a meta lesson in here for you.

If it’s likely that businesses are missing assets, but unable (or unwilling) to recognize their opportunity to build out these missing assets themselves, then this is your opportunity to build these assets for them.

And if you know you’re going to be in the business of building out assets for businesses then you need to be building out the assets that help you build out these assets.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Put on your opportunity goggles and start looking for missing assets. Your own specific knowledge will enable you to spot opportunity and build the assets that are needed.

I’m just saying my goggles are not your goggles, but I don’t mind if you look over my shoulder to see what I’m doing.

See you next time.

— Bill

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