“One Stop Shop”

Are you really? Stop and think about what it would take to legitimately make this claim.

Not only would you have to be skilled at every possible customer request dealing with your industry, but you also have to have the means (money, equipment, manpower, time etc…) to fulfill their request. Can that be done? Sure, but just imagine what it would take to make that happen in your field. Can you pull it off? If so… great!

Instead of trying to be a “one stop shop” and diluting your time and resources with secondary products and services, what if you focused all of your efforts on the one thing that is the most profitable, or that you’re best at (which in the long run will be most profitable), and aligned all of your resources behind that offering.

When Henry Ford first started producing the automobile he didn’t say “We are your One Stop Shop for everything you ever wanted in a vehicle”; he said “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black”.

Mr. Ford found that he could focus each assembly line on specific part or jobs, thus producing a consistent finished product, at speeds never imagined before. This theory changed manufacturing forever; why, because it’s more profitable!

Why would Mr. Ford have a line of people that only assembled the X-part”? Because those people became so efficient at assembling the X-part that he was able to produce them at a tremendously discounted rate.

What would happen if he had told the group from X-part assembly to trade places with Y-part assembly? The learning curve would have caused a slow in production and cost Ford time and money.

In short – If you are starting a business, try not to be too broad in your offering, narrow and focus just a bit. But be careful not to mop yourself into a corner, because one day you may be able to offer it in blue.