Indispensable: How to Become the Company That Your Customers Can't Live Without

Chapter 12. Twenty-Eight Indispensable Lessons

Right under Your Nose

Lessons on becoming indispensable are everywhere. They're in your garage. They're in your closet and refrigerator. They're right under your nose. It's terribly difficult, though, to get people to open their eyes and see what they should be doing with their own businesses by tapping the inspiration available all around them. This isn't about copying the other guy. It's about looking way beyond what your competitor is doing to spark some creativity from what people in other endeavors are doing. I always say that you could spend a day with virtually any type of company, from an auto dealer's showroom to the printing operation for a daily newspaper, and get inspiration for what you should and should not be doing in your own business.

Figure It Out!

I constantly beat the drum of creativity in business to my clients. In my 25 years of studying successful businesses, it has become glaringly obvious to me that the most effective leaders give their employees training, values, and parameters for action and then say, "You go figure it out." It's the old "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day versus teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" argument. Inspiration is everywhere. Whether you choose to be inspired or choose to whine about how there's really nothing you can do is up to you. The simple, and for some, painful truth is this: No one can tell you how to do it. What worked for one business cannot simply ...