In lieu of fall and after visiting my first pumpkin patch of the season, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite concepts from entrepreneur, author, and speaker Mike Michalowicz. In 2012 Mike spoke at an Entrepreneurs Organization of Saint Louis about entrepreneurial approaches he learned from pumpkin farmers. I immediately became interested in the correlation between a budding entrepreneur and a farmer.
The concept behind The Pumpkin Plan is simple and straight forward – you can grow your business by pertaining to everyone (growing both good pumpkins and bad pumpkins), or by focusing in on perfecting one niche (growing good, colossal pumpkins). When you become ridiculously good at your niche and stop serving everyone, you in fact – grow something colossal.
The Pumpkin Plan states the following:
- Plant the right seeds (what is the one thing you do better than anyone else? Do that.)
- Spend time nurturing those seeds (nurturing = spending all of your time, money, and energy with your “right seeds”)
- Weed out the bad, rotten pumpkins (Those that drain internal resources = under pay, over demand)
- Over nurture the good, healthy pumpkins (Over serve and satisfy your ideal customers)
- Sit back and watch your pumpkin patch grow with winning pumpkins (Filling your business with winning customers who help your business grow)
Never thought such a simple business concept would make such a huge impact on me. Check out Mike Michalowicz or The Pumpkin Plan if you are looking to learn some great, out of the box business advice.