Dorie Clark asked this wonderfully provocative question during a recent podcast about her new book called The Long Game. She was speaking with Douglas Burdett from The Marketing Book Podcast.
We all have finite energy and limited resources. If we focus our efforts on a few essential areas, something must give. You can’t be great at everything – so by default, you might need to be not so great at something.
I love this notion.
But I like anything that promotes companies and individuals staying focused and not chasing BSOs. (Bright Shiny Objects).
In the past, I argued strongly against my employer Nomacorc, not get into screwcaps – Nomacorc made a revolutionary inner seal wine bottle closure that, at the time, solved a pressing problem for winemakers. Screwcaps were a BSO. I thought we should not get distracted by line extensions even though the market was increasingly using them. I thought we still had room for growth within our sub-category. My argument – let’s be bad at offering a variety of closures and be exceptional at one-type, inner seal.
For another client, I urged them to stay focused on what they were good at and not get distracted by sub-segments where frankly they had little to offer. Over time, I won that argument and I think they benefited from a focused-approached to answer the question of who they served and what made them meaningfully different. By being bad at offering fifteen types of software tools, they were successful because people recognized them as deep experts in one type of software product.
Banking On This
Dorie gave a great example of being “bad” at something. A bank was trying to find a way to differentiate itself in the market. Most banks are so similar they blur into each other – First National Bank of Nothingness.
One bank determined that if they had extraordinary long hours, they could become a convenience bank for people working odd hours. So they were open evenings and weekends when most banks were closed. They had to be bad at something – so they decided to help fund these extra, long hours they would cut the interest rates paid on deposits. Their research indicated that their customers didn’t care much about the interest rate- but convenience mattered.
The result – raving fans who loved the hours that fit their lifestyle. And it was okay to be bad at the interest paid to this segment since they mostly cared about convenience.
What Are You Bad At?
In my consulting work, I know what I’m great at, and, consequentially, there are plenty of things I’m not particularly good at doing. My expertise is in expert marketing strategy – and to do this, I am bad at plenty of things.
For example, I’m okay at Excel – but I never put my head down to become a superstar on that platform. I never learned Photoshop or other sophisticated design software, but I am good at offering clear direction to graphic artists. I’m okay (maybe bad) at deeply understanding financial reporting documents but know enough to get by. Balance sheets and P&L’s make my eyes roll.
When a business or brand eliminates something, to focus on one area – they become more important to a specific audience. Think of IKEA not focusing on what other furniture stores do – assembled furniture and deliver it to your home. IKEA decide decades ago to focus on value and thriftiness in the home furnishing segment. That seemed to work out for them.
For you to be great at something, think about what you can be bad at to serve what customers value.
Dorie Clark’s New Book – The Long Game
Dorie Clark Dorie Clark is a superb thinker about brands, marketing, and provocative business issues. Beyond this provocative question of being bad at something, the book covers many insightful and inspiring ideas on careers and a long-term career.
Here is a brief summary of her new book call The Long Game. Her main thesis about the long-term strategy has always been a cornerstone of my goals. How can every day be a step toward my personal goals?
“Your personal goals need a long-term strategy.
It’s no secret that we’re pushed to the limit. Today’s professionals feel rushed, overwhelmed, and perennially behind. So we keep our heads down, focused on the next thing, and the next, without a moment to breathe.
How can we break out of this endless cycle and create the kind of interesting, meaningful lives we all seek?
Just as CEOs who optimize for quarterly profits often fail to make the strategic investments necessary for long-term growth, the same is true in our own personal and professional lives. We need to reorient ourselves to see the big picture so we can tap into the power of small changes that, made today, will have an enormous and disproportionate impact on our future success. We need to start playing The Long Game.
As top business thinker and Duke University professor Dorie Clark explains, we all know intellectually that lasting success takes persistence and effort. And yet so much of the relentless pressure in our culture pushes us toward doing what’s easy, what’s guaranteed, or what looks glamorous in the moment. In The Long Game, she argues for a different path. It’s about doing small things over time to achieve our goals—and being willing to keep at them, even when they seem pointless, boring, or hard.
In The Long Game, Clark shares unique principles and frameworks you can apply to your specific situation, as well as vivid stories from her own career and other professionals’ experiences. Everyone is allotted the same twenty-four hours—but with the right strategies, you can leverage those hours in more efficient and powerful ways than you ever imagined. It’s never an overnight process, but the long-term payoff is immense: to finally break out of the frenetic day-to-day routine and transform your life and your career.”
Dorie Clark – Description of The Long Game
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.
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