I’ve been saying for years, that there are only three things any company must do to succeed. And as simple as that sounds, I was wrong. The revised three things are:

1. Create Value that people want to pay for.
2. Find those people and sell to them.
3. Build an organization that does the first two, over and over again at a cost below what your customers want to pay.

I used to say the first thing was “Make something people want to buy.” That’s subtly but significantly different from the way I say it now. What made the change? Three reasons.

Reason #1:  COSTCO. Costco doesn’t make anything but they are one of the most successful companies around. They do create value that people are willing to pay for by finding stuff, bringing it to an accessible location and pricing / packaging it in a way that is appealing to their market. So from that perspective it makes sense to think of creating value rather than making something.

Reason #2:  Passion-blinded entrepreneurs. These are folks that get so fixated on the thing they’ve invented that they don’t listen to the market. Either they believe that because they love it everyone else should too; or they refuse to listen to how the market wants to buy it or use it. So I thought changing the emphasis from “making something” to “creating value” would get those people to consider engaging the customer more. Maybe.

Reason #3 – For a business to succeed, you don’t do these thing independently from one another. It’s not like you create value. THEN go out and sell it. THEN build an organization. The best companies create value that is easy to sell and take their organizational strengths and weaknesses into account when doing so. It’s all of a piece. I thought saying “create value” makes it seem slightly less distinct that “make something”.

As I said – a subtle difference, but a significant one.

Takeaways:

1. Create Value that people want to pay for.
2. Find those people and sell to them.
3. Build an organization that does the first two, over and over again at a cost below what your customers want to pay.