Instead of consuming, our society needs to learn to produce. How is this done?
I think through entrepreneurism. I think through story. What is the story of your business? How have you helped people? How have you thought up a product or service to sell and how did you find out if it was needed?
There’s long been an urban legend that advertising creates markets and thinks up worthless products to sell to those markets. That advertising agencies sit and work to create a new niche just so that their latest big thing looks like it’s new, best price, best value, or high in quality.
Unfortunately, this is the viewpoint of a person who doesn’t quite understand business. What else does a business do besides sell to new markets? What else does a business do but test through countless avenues what is the one selling point that best advertises their product? Without knowing if a product is needed or sought, business is essentially dead in the water. Without knowing what an audience considers the positioning of a particular product, no business can hope to stay in the black for long.
Businesses aren’t encouraging everyone to buy their product (which is often the acccusation when people say advertising creates markets), they are seeking out the BEST customer for their product. They know they can’t sell to everyone, so they fine-tune their advertising and focus to a particular group. The market was always there, advertising just created the boundaries of the market.
It’s the same thing with consuming versus producing. We can whine about how our consumer-driven economy leaves no room for producing anymore. Far from it! We need to be better than the current producers! If we can’t beat them on price, we beat them on quality, and vice versa.
I think the mainstream media has it all wrong. Business is not the root of the problem here. Business is what will get us out of the problem. Business (and entrepreneurship and whatever) is the vehicle to a producing future, which is what this country needs to be doing. From services to products, we must create something that our competitors can’t create and do it in a way that makes people buy from us!
It’s so easy to sit on the couch after we clock out at our day job and not do anything about producing something. That’s because we’re starting too big. Start small. Focus on one solution. What would be one thing that would make the world a better place?
I thought of one at the gym the other night while watching Extreme Couponing. Wouldn’t it be great if extreme couponers taught a few people their tricks and those people took those extreme couponing tricks and used them to fill up local food banks and homeless shelter pantries? What kind of awesome entrepreneurial venture would that be? I have no idea how to make money, but perhaps it could be a not-for-profit kind of gig or perhaps it could be a side gig that is supported by a natural food company? Buy one of our cake mixes, we donate one to a food bank? Toms Shoes is doing this with shoes successfully all around the world.
So, think of a solution. While it may not be a full-fledged business, it’s a way to produce, rather than to consume.
