Tiffany’s Sells Swatches! Extremely unlikely, given their pull-back on $100 charms because they recognized the trade-off they were making in serving that low-cost customer versus serving the elite-quality-oriented customer that they built their reputation on. So says bestselling author Kevin Maney in his recent book Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On and Others Don’t (Random House) Forward by Jim Collins.
Kevin explains how organizations who excel inherently understand this trade-off. His book will help you get crystal clear about the trade-off that you need to make if you’re going to compete in the marketplace and have your product or service catch on. He gives examples of both those who never made the trade-off and shrank into oblivion and those who made the break-out that most organizational leaders envision. This book is not an academic tome; it is alive with wonderful examples that remain with you long after you put it on your bookshelf or archive it on your Kindle.
One of the examples he provides, in fact, is of the development of Kindle. I marvel at the richness of his social network and how it elevates the details and understanding that he draws from these relationships. It provides credibility and insight that many books miss.
Business books often overdo it just to fill pages, where you likely will feel diminishing value after the first three chapters. Not this one. Kevin keeps it interesting from the first page to the last or from the first click to the last. I read all his reviews on Kindle and I thought I would give him a chance to respond to those critics (not that there were many critics) in an upcoming interview on Just Ask Leadership’s Blog.
Many academics give you a list of what to do, Kevin gives you a mental model that will help you think about your business and the trade-off the market is wanting you to make to get your products or services to catch on. What is that trade-off for your organization?
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