This being a long weekend, I had strict plans to do absolutely nothing yesterday. I was sitting on the couch, rifling through the channles when I happened to see Mark Cuban speaking to the Online News Association Conference.
Speaking to a room full of people that work with online media, Cuban made some bold statements: The internet is old news. Noboday cares about the technology.
Some attendees wanted to get very deep in details asking questions like “If you ran a newspaper’s web site, would your home page have video on it? Or would you put that deeper in the site to avoid unnecessary bandwidth costs?” (I’m paraphrasing here. I don’t remember the exact question)
Instead of jumping in, Cuban did what he does best: he looked at the bigger picture. The answer: who cares if you have video on the home page? What’s it doing for you? Is it sponsored? Are you getting paid each time it’s played? Or is it something people are seeing as content they’re after? It doesn’t matter that you’re an online newspaper. Forget about the technology. Get people what they’re looking for.
To simplify things even more, here’s what Cuban said:
“What do you have access to that distinguishes you?” Cuban asked. “What are the assets you have in terms of writers? What are the skills they have that allow you to distinguish your organization from everyone else?” Figure those out, he said, then “just lever the hell out of them.”
I think that can apply to any business.
1. Access- What do you have access to that no one else does? If you’re a tech firm, maybe you have access to V.C. No matter what your firm does, you have access to something that others don’t.
2. Distinguishing Skills- If you don’t have distinguishing skills, you’re just trying to blend in. But I’m guessing you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.
3. Assets- You’ve got assets. You’ve got attorneys that no one else has. And hopefully they’ve got the distinguishing skills and access to get what your clients want.
You’ve got these. Now “Lever the hell out of ‘em.”
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