The Essential Entrepreneur, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 9Innovation, re-invention and disruption

Being successful begins with looking for ways to change the way an industry operates. Without that you're just competing against established businesses on their playing field.

They already have the financial backing, customers, infrastructure, people and processes to defend their market share and will make it very difficult for you to compete as a start-up, unless you change the way the industry operates and make it difficult for them to manoeuvre and compete.

If you're smart enough and nimble enough, you can literally use their market strength as a weakness, leveraging their inability to quickly change their business model to counter your new approach. Let me share some strategies I've used to gain a market advantage and accelerate growth in my own businesses.

Aligning to your customer

In our first business, Regency Food Services, my brother Greg and I realised that our business was operating as traditional distribution warehouses did, from early morning until mid-afternoon, yet the market we were servicing, being hospitality, was operating from lunchtime until late evening—almost opposite hours of the clock!

As a result, orders were largely left on answering machines well after our sales staff had gone home. Chefs, who generally ordered their nightly (large) orders to replenish the kitchen after their dinner service, were often tired and short tempered and didn't provide the best descriptions, and then weren't available if ...