Business Journal

Business is about competition. We drill this idea into the minds of students to an extent that competitiveness becomes a prism to interpret all aspects of a company. Stock prices, EPS, market caps, evaluation of its financial statements, its policies and obligations towards labor, its expense and production ratios, its marketing strategy, or even the way that it invests in philanthropy. In business, a company is defined by its competitiveness.

I rarely read my local business journal but – when I do – I’m inundated with “lists”. The journal publishes lists of the “top” banker, lists of the “top” web services company, lists of the twenty-five most influential real estate agents. And these lists are usually organized by some exaggerated metric like gross revenue, or the number of things they own, or the square footage of stuff they offer, or the percentage of market share they have. You’d think there’d be more to publish about business in the worst recession since the Great Depression but I figure it must be the lists that sell copy because that’s all they’re always talking about. Maybe lists are an appeal to the vanity of their subscribers who can tout, “Ooo – Look: we’re the 16th largest telecommunications company in the area.” They even publish this monstrous, gaudy “Book of Lists” every year so you can, you know, see how competitive you are and where you place in the Great Race of Lists. Maybe they think I use it to make purchasing decisions or finding a telephone number? A ridiculous idea, I know – I use Google to find things and to help inform my decisions, not a telephone book or a Book of Lists (BOL). Well, intriguing Infoporn that it is, the BOL is a huge waste of bound glossy paper to me and I just end up throwing it away. It has zero impact on doing my business.

Competition is good. It’s competition that forces companies to innovate and to provide increasing value to consumers. It encourages companies to improve upon their core competencies. It’s also quite thrilling – being successful as a business owner offers its own sweet rewards. There’s nothing wrong with competition.

However, where I think competition goes wrong is when we boil the value of business to something like baseball stats and become overly-infatuated with our own standing. That’s how we got Countrywides, or Enrons, or Goldman-Sachs, or Citigroups: where the inflated numbers told us about size and market share but nothing about how the business was managed. Where competition goes wrong is when running your business becomes more of a mundane chore rather than the exhilarating challenge you felt when it first launched. I feel that – where competition goes wrong – is when the mission of the business becomes less about making good products and services, and more about pleasing investors, shareholders, or lenders. Competition goes wrong when a company puts more emphasis in bragging about the sales they’ve earned than earning the business (the trust) they’ve received from their clients.

There are millions of small businesses out there that don’t make the “lists” but do a good job by their clients and customers. Business owners enjoy what they do and aren’t overly-concerned with cocktail parties, after-hours networking events, schmoozing with local political wanna-be’s. They just want to provide an excellent service and make their customers happy. That’s when competition does right. But how do you measure that?

Besides, when I look at these lists and the metrics they propose, they’re completely antithetical to the way that I want to run my business. I don’t want or need employees: that’s a serious liability if not an inefficient means of managing my expenses. I don’t want a facility or an office suite: that’s just recurring fixed costs and property taxes go up every year… why do I want that? I don’t want products: that means inventory, square footage, and assets I can’t turn. I don’t want a fleet of trucks or a trite car detailed-out with my branding: that’s just gimmick, and does anybody doubt the cost of oil will go up? Seriously: is driving around to fix a disposable asset like a computer what any sane person wants to do? And I don’t want huge market share: if my firm got too big, I’d loose sight of pleasing my customers or enjoying what I do – I like being “small”.

Hey, I run a very profitable business that thrives because of low overhead, managing data not stuff, thrives with modern telecommunications, and a commitment to doing right by my customers. I run my business because I love what I do – I get to have fun every day doing the stuff I love doing – and I strive to earn the trust of my clients.

We live in a different age. How can “lists” that track older, material metrics of competitive success be relevant in a world where “tall” organizations aren’t the norm but the problem, and the goal is to become increasingly more “flat” or even “virtual”? How can “lists” measure satisfaction, trust, or fun? If the goal is to become tremendously productive and to do more with less, and if the goal is to establish trust and to get closer to the concerns of your clients, lists like these seem to lose the point.

In this economy, it’s not about how big you are. It’s how smart you are. It’s about how well you’re trusted. It’s not about out-competing and undoing your competition, but collaborating and working with your competition to provide even better value to each other’s clients. In this economy, business isn’t about campuses, plush corner offices, or impressive conference tables. It’s about mobility, agility, and owning nothing at all. Business is about getting closer to your customer and earning their trust, and not just taking them for granted as another statistic for your next listing.

My company never makes the list. I think, though, the local business journal (and its readership) has a lot to consider in re-thinking what business is in the digital age.

By: Russell Mickler

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