Innovation, and what we have come to know as entrepreneurship, has no value until it creates something a customer wants.
The Golden Rule
Successful entrepreneurship, job growth, profitability, and business success is dependent on identifying and pursuing customers who have the ability to pay and the desire to buy.
Innovators vs. Entrepreneurs
There is no shortage of innovators and inventors in the US, or around the globe for that matter. The problem with the American economy and workplace is not a lack of idea creativity but rather a significant lack of commercialized execution and implementation of ideas that exist. In other words, most entrepreneurs don’t have working models and strategic plans to identify paying customers and to provide value propositions to entice customers to part with their money.
To Rebuild Our Economy and to Create New Jobs
Neither the “left” nor the “right” has the answers for rebuilding our economy, creating jobs, and generating a nation of world-class entrepreneurs. According to Gallup Chairman and CEO, Jim Clifton, “World leaders – especially American leaders – and city leaders are spending the majority of their time and billions of dollars on innovation. They’re digging in the wrong place in their frantic search for quality GDP growth and job creation because they’re concentrating solely on innovation.”
Clifton suggests that what is really lacking are highly efficient working models (or strategic plans) to find and pursue new customers. Clifton says, “Few leaders understand that the best ideas and inventions in the world have NO VALUE until they have a (paying) customer.”
Entrepreneurs without a Business Model Are Doomed to Fail
True entrepreneurs are those people who:
- Develop business models that identify or create an endless stream of paying customers
- Fashion powerful value propositions that, in turn, create massive consumer demand
- Propel profits, GDP expansion, and new jobs as a result
In short, the best way to achieve renewed economic and business growth is to develop working models and strategic plans to “aggressively” attract new customers. Most businesses, entrepreneurs, national and global leaderships fail because they have no strategy.
Clifton suggests that “entrepreneurship is affected by supply and demand, but it doesn’t simply supply products and services… it must create demand.” True entrepreneurs increase demand and spending by making their products and services available to those who are not using them or, where products and services are being underutilized. They creatively identify and reach out to new customers; which is a never-ending process supported by ongoing improvements in methodologies.
Entrepreneurial success, economic growth, and new job creation is not so much about innovation as it is about creating working models and strategic plans to identify and/or create new or more customers. The working model must have a secondary component that creates demand for products and services; demand meaning where customers are willing to buy!