Let's consider first how learning and improvement optimally take place.
In the last several years, Russian athletic coaches and trainers learned something very profound. Athletes could dramatically improve their performances by spending half their time thinking about perfect performance and half their time physically practicing. Traditionally, little time had been spent on visualizing perfect implementation. In both the mental and physical practice, Russians also learned that measuring the mental and physical performances was critical to progress.
Like athletes, you have to spend significant amounts of time thinking about, working on, and measuring all three dimensions of a business model. The ability to do so requires a major shift in focus and in how time is spent for many.
Most companies spend enormous percentages of their time on improving performance on inferior or obsolete business models, and almost no time on communicating the existing business model, working on the next one, or articulating long-term business model principles. Some of that time spent on old business models will have to go.
Begin by measuring how much time is being spent on each of the three dimensions of a business model, as well as how much time is being spent on improving the performance of the business model you have now . . . rather than replacing or improving it the model itself.
To understand the distinction, a layoff to handle lower volume due to lost sales is trying to improve performance of an existing business model. Outsourcing many of your unimportant activities to vary with your volume, on the other hand, can be part of a change towards a better business model. While both efforts are focused on cost improvements, only the latter is likely to open the windows to new opportunities by allowing more attention to be focused on key activities.
Also, you should measure your historical and current performance relative to competitors and potential competitors along the dimensions of a good and an ideal business model.
Just to remind you, here are those elements. In developing ideal business models to help your business reach its fullest potential, my investigation shows there are another four elements to add to the basics required for a good business model:
1. Your business model opens new windows of opportunity for you, while closing those and other important windows of opportunity for current and potential competitors.
2. You find ways to provide more helpful benefits for more types of stakeholders with each round of business model improvement.
3. You serve stakeholders who would normally not be able to meet your minimum standards to become lenders, shareholders, employees, suppliers, partners, or customers.
4. Your business model improvements expand your ability to make more types of business model innovations more rapidly in the future.
Good examples of ideal business models can be found by studying companies like Business Objects, Ecolab, Iron Mountain, and Paychex.
A good business model provides benefits to all of its stakeholders more effectively than existing competitors or new entrants can. Here are six common ways to provide a greater array and volume of stakeholder benefits:
1. Help your customers add customers for themselves faster than their competitors.
2. Stimulate industry growth through providing more benefits and fewer drawbacks at the current price level.
3. Reprice your offerings to encourage using more of them.
4. Reduce the resources needed to provide and use these offerings.
5. Reinvent the resources generated by your business model to provide even more benefits and fewer drawbacks in the future, faster than your competitors can.
6. Fairly share excess resources with the stakeholders who have supported and provided the business models success in a predictable way, so that no other organization can offer these stakeholders as much benefit now or in the future.
You can pick several public domain works, create different products for each of them and after you have set up their individual websites, return to improve and diversify each website. This will allow you to both generate multiple income streams and then maximize the income potential of each stream within a short period of time.
So many people think of the public domain for starting a new business that they forget the strongest benefit of using the public domain – instant content. If you already have a business that can use supplementary content – search the public domain for possible content. Not only can such new content be used to increase your AdSense income but it can also ‘sell’ your other products and services by building your business reputation as an expert.
Of course, it’s not always possible to find relevant content (information on the latest microprocessor technology is unlikely to be in the public domain), but there are many niches (dream interpretation is just one example) that have more or less timeless appeal. If you operate a business that works in ‘timeless’ niches (a quick list is given later in this chapter), the public domain can become a far better resource than any ghostwriter you can ever hire!
In any Internet Marketing basics course, the point is made time and time again that you should choose your first business from within your own interests. Logic says that people share hobbies and interests, and if there are enough people like you searching for information on these interests, you stand to make some serious money.
This advice is both good and bad. While it is helpful to start a first business in a niche that is your interest, it’s often the case that these niches are not very profitable – there might be too much competition or not enough demand (or just not a ‘buying’ market).
On the other hand, hobbies such as bowling, playing poker, crochet patterns or even architecture are excellent avenues for starting small public-domain-supported business sites. By using public domain works that outline everything from playing tips to history and immediately usable information (recipes for chocolate chip cookies, anyone?), you can carve your own little niche and not only build yet another income stream, but enjoy yourself while doing it as well.
The point is that you should assess your current resources – your business and your hobbies – to see how the public domain can bring in new income for you.
Both Donald Mitchell & Li Ming Wong are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Donald Mitchell has sinced written about articles on various topics from . Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantag. Donald Mitchell's top article . to your Favourites.
Li Ming Wong has sinced written about articles on various topics from Search Engine Marketing, Abdominal and Blogging. Li Ming Wong is an internet marketing entrepreneur. Visit Blog for tips and guides to starting your own online business.. Li Ming Wong's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.