How Busy Entrepreneurs Can Continue To Learn New Things
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Photo by Loe Moshkovska: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wears-black-kiss-print-crew-neck-shirts-sits-722244/
Has anyone heard of a company called Blockbuster?
https://news.airbnb.com/store-manager-lists-worlds-last-blockbuster-on-airbnb-for-local-residents/
I remember growing up in Detroit and going to my neighborhood Blockbuster on a Friday night to peruse through the aisles looking for a good movie. This is where all the fun happened in my neighborhood on a Friday night.
Fast forward to today and BlockBuster is gone.
It has turned into a cautionary tale of what can happen when you allow your business to become complacent and stagnate.
Your business becomes obsolete.
In the case of Blockbuster, according to the Business Insider article, “Blockbuster: The rise and fall of the movie rental store, what happened to the brand,” was their inability to learn new things and shift their business offering in a different direction. The company started by David Cook in 1985 in Dallas was based on the brick-and-mortar video store experience and worked very well for a long time UNTIL…..
The market changed.
Instead of taking a hint from the market that was quickly changing from going to the video store to rent a movie to watching movies on demand in their own homes, David failed to learn the new thing that was going on and well the rest is history! The craziest thing is all Blockbuster had to do was buy Netflix which was the dominant player in the market at the time. This would have helped Blockbuster pivot by learning a new thing.
I know you might be thinking well I am not Blockbuster and I am too busy to learn new things.
Well, both are true.
But the cautionary tale is still the same. If you CHOOSE to stay stagnant and not learn new things your company might die a slow death as a result. This has been proven. However, if you do decide that you are ready to make space to learn new things that can move your company forward then I have a few ideas for you below.
Network, Network, Network
Take an online course via Coursera or another platform on a subject that interests you and apply the key principles to your business.
Read books and gain a blueprint about how other successful entrepreneurs have done it before you and apply those principles to your business. Audible is a great way to do this.
Attend conferences, lunch & learns, webinars, or seminars that are about learning soft skills like relationship building or communication to learn ways to add your personal touch to your business offerings.
Benchmark from another business in a different industry to learn the key methods they use to stay competitive and implement those strategies in your business. Think Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Apple.
The list is infinite but the bottom line is the same. Just because you are a busy entrepreneur doesn’t mean you can stop learning new ways to evolve your business. If you don’t do this then one day you might be gone with the wind just like Blockbuster.
Keep IT Sunny~
