You may know Joe Sugarman from his infomercials or his QVC appearances for Blu-Blockers.
But he was also a mail-order pioneer hawking the world's 1st pocket calculator, cordless phones, and digital watches to the public via his direct sales and marketing genius.
I was listening to a recording one of Joe's speeches the other day and he said, "One good path to success is to learn all the proven rules and meticulously follow them. Another path is to occasionally break all the rules, because breakthroughs come only from breaking rules."
Resonates with me - I've always been more maverick than not. On the other hand, if something is working, I'm not going to mess with it for the sake of innovation. In my mortgage business, I was successful because I followed an already plowed path using proven strategies.
However, as Joe said, OCCASIONALLY, and I agree...there will be select times when you have no alternative but to be the pioneer in order to move forward and in order to stand out from the crowd.
Take 53 seconds and watch this video of Joe Sugarman being interviewed by Joe Polish. He drops at least three golden nuggets - don't miss the one at the 18 second mark.
So when do you take a risk and try a new approach?
I think the best times to innovate are when you are absolutely convinced that the traditional modus operandi, the already plowed path, the crowd... is wrong.
Just as an example, when Cheryl and I knew that our business model was shifting to consulting with small businesses, conventional wisdom and well-meant advice told us to stop doing our free weekly webinars altogether or at least charge attendees.
My business instinct, which has served me well for 30 years, told me to do the complete opposite.
They were our best way to get in front of prospective clients who are outside of the Pittsburgh area and to earn their trust. So what we did was to offer them monthly instead of weekly - without charge - and promote them as exclusive events.
"Exclusivity" is the backbone of our whole business model - every client we work with is given a blueprint that is unique to his business needs. Nothing is cookie-cutter.
Over the years, our webinars have created a loyal following and a viral sensation. That decision to give away free "stuff" (what Eben Pagan later called "moving the free line") was our breakthrough.
An interesting survey of selected, successful, profitable large corporations revealed that 74% said they had achieved their first big success with either a unique product or a distinctive way of doing business...although this breakthrough may not have come along until they had been in business for many years.
I also know many companies that are then able to subsequently build on that first breakthrough more conservatively in order to grow and stabilize their businesses.
The bottom-line, I guess, is that you gotta gamble. You try to gamble only when you must OR when circumstances look so favorable that it is irresistible...but you gotta gamble.
As David Ogilvy says, "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." Wise words.
Seize the day!
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