Be a Weed

There’s a temptation to copy others in business. Keep your head down, and follow what everyone else is doing. You’ll hear it a lot out there — this is the traditional way of doing things. And in some cases that’s good — I’m not sure I want my surgeon trying a new and untested method on me, and I definitely don’t want to go down in a submarine to visit the Titanic in a ship with materials the experts don't think will survive the pressure.

That’s just foolish. 

But there’s a danger too, in just following the crowd. I was going for my morning walk the other day and I spotted this freshly mowed lawn. The lawn was beautifully uniform, but I noticed in it this really strong weed. Sure, it was a little banged up after being mowed, but the weed stood there, proud, a good 4” above the rest of the lawn. Over the next few days on my walk, I watched as the weed put out new leaves, competing and winning against the grass around it.

Success in business — being really great — is like being that weed. You can have a mediocre business of any sort, sometimes just enough to get by, by being the grass. You’ll be indistinguishable in a field of other grasses. You’ll have tough competition for water and space, and you'll always have that feeling of stress.

But to be a weed — to be taller and greater than any others in your space means doing something measurably different.

How do you become a weed?

Take a look at your competitors in the service contracting space. Really take a deep look at them. Evaluate their capabilities. Figure out where they are strong, and where they are weak. Then do the opposite of what they are doing. 

Grass grows thin stems and lots of them. Grass's strategy is saturation. This weed grew a thick stem and put all of its energy into growing just a few really thick stems. This was key to its success. Learn from that weed.

Maybe your competitors offer a ton of services. What could you do if you only offered one, but offered it so well that you became the most amazing “whatever service” in the area because you weren’t diluting your offerings? 

What could you do if you focused on just your customer service, ensuring that your field service techs not only did their service but also mopped the floors and swept the driveway on the way out, or left a thank you gift on the front stoop? What could you do if you really focused on *one* element of your business to be different than all of your other competitors instead of being lost in a sea of sameness? 

Doing this well requires data and constant monitoring of what works and doesn't work, and it requires you to really critically examine your business and your current capabilities. 

It also requires taking a look at the market. What do customers really want? They may call you for a room redecoration, but what they really want is for their house to be transformed. And they don’t really want their house transformed, they want to be the envy of their neighbors. And they don’t just want to be the envy of their neighbors, they want to be seen as wealthy. If you can tap into their true needs, then you can tap into exactly what will make them buy from you specifically. 

That will help shape your offering into the right package and command a higher premium.

Being a weed takes guts. You'll get a bit banged up in the process. Your staff may think you're crazy for a bit and it will take a lot of communication and vision. But if you look at companies who win, who grow, and who dominate markets it's because they figure out which one of the 3 value disciplines they want to focus on and really lean into it. 

Obviously, there are some limits to this. Your customers will have expectations and it will be difficult to set their expectations appropriately. But if you had told people that a circus with no animals would be a raving success before Cirque Du Soleil became a thing, people would have told you you were crazy. Making strategic moves that win require the right mix of identifying where the market is going, doing something no one else is doing, and finding that mixture of delighting your customers in a way they never could have expected.