"Less is More" mentality for small business

Monocle is a great source of juicy global nuggets of information... news, commerce, politics... all their stories (at least those that I've reviewed) have a sincere, local feel to them, offering a vivacity and honesty to the people and places they capture.

One of the latest episodes (it's another automatically-updating Podcast subscription of mine) features Bildschone Bucher (forgive the missing umlauts), a small bookshop in Berlin. I've always been fascinated by small bookstores because I never could grasp how they stayed in business. Not having researched the subject all that much, I would occasionally walk/drive by a hole-in-the-wall bookstore and think "Why on Earth would any person in his or her right mind search for and buy books HERE!? The selection is minimal, prices are bound to be higher than the big guys (or the library!), and most often the location isn't prime real estate either..." Well, silly me...

Bildschone Bucher's philosophy is simple... "Whilst everything (major booksellers) are aggregating and getting larger, we are intentionally staying smaller." "Big bookstores want to show more, display more, get you to buy more. People like coming into our bookstore because they don't feel overwhelmed; we aren't pushing anything down their throat, and there is a manageable selection from which to choose. Part of our service to our patrons is choosing a selection of books for them."

Ay, there's the rub. Yet another example of success by staying local, carving out a niche and serving it well.

Bildshone Bucher's decides on what makes its cut based on whether or not the staff "falls in love" with a particular book. By chance, they tend to fall in love primarily with photography books (about 80% of their inventory). Some of the images on their site are dazzling... check it out!

Also interesting to note that the founder had first started his bookselling venture online, with a concept and website called 25 Books. Only after its success did he decide to move the business to a brick and mortar operation as well...

(Updated 3/1/08)
And to FURTHER illustrate the point, I just read one of Guy's posts which I had not seen previously... "If You Want Customers to be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information."

It's a study that showed consumers who were given less information about chocolate and body lotion were able to optimistically use their imaginations to wishfully think and form positive impressions about the products. Whereas, those overloaded with details of the products' chemical composition, preservatives, etc. could not as easily overlook those details.

So, for some products, is consumer ignorance truly bliss?

Are Your Favorite Sites Global Faves Too?

Curious to see how your blog, favorite social network, media source, or company website stacks up in today's growing Internet space? These are two great resources to learn how much traffic the Internet's leading websites (and in fact almost all websites) are garnering.

www.alexa.com

The gold standard of online traffic data. Alexa developed a proprietary ranking system averaging Reach and monthly Page Views - this means a site's rank reflects 1) number of users and 2) number of pages viewed. Read the full explanation: (Alexa Traffic Ranking Definition).

It's got a great feature where you can plot the growth trend for multiple sites to see how they compare to each other. (Notice how I say "growth trend" as opposed to "trend" w/o hesitation. I'd be interested to see some hard data on how many websites/ebusinesses are truly in a "mature" stage of their life cycle. My guess - not many.)

http://www.quantcast.com/

Quantcast uses a much friendlier user interface (in my humble, non IT-background opinion). My favorite feature is the clearly stated Unique Visitor and Unique Page View count, which Alexa does not display in its rankings. Plus, Quantcast's Top 100 U.S. sites provides an interesting 1-line demographic snapshot of the featured sites (Top 100 U.S. sites).

You can also "Quantify" your site/blog by becoming a member, enabling you to view detailed reports of your site's traffic. Of the top 100 sites in the U.S., 7 of them have already done so. I can't vouch for the service b/c I don't use it - my guess is Google Analytics still takes the cake in this arena.

Plus, I just subscribed to Quantify's blog. 90% of the posts are featurettes highlighting a "new addition" to the Quantify family. It's a great way to find some great new sites you might be interested in (although StumbleUpon's definitely a more efficient method to serve this purpose). A couple of recent discoveries:

ICanHasCheezburger.com--- My gut is telling me this site makes (MUCH) more $$ than it should. If that's the case, I can only say one thing (equal to the sentiment I have towards country singers) - good for them.

HairFinder.com --- Ditto above. It's really just a facade site driving traffic to Amazon book sales.
And they get 1.3MM global uniques / month!!! Oh affiliate Marketing, how I love thee!

It's good enough

It's not too often that I get horoscopes/fortunes/palm readings/etc. that actually resonate well. I'd have likely failed Astrology (as if you can major in it). But on a whim Miller and I hit up Eastar on Lake St, and this is what my fortune cookie had to say...




(Notice the missing apostrophe... maybe there's room to make a move in the fortune business? Our competitive advantage could be our award-winning translator!)




This wasn't one of those "damn that's a good idea" revelations. It was one of the "I-have-thought-about-this-and-this-is-a-sign-confirming-what-Iwas-thinking" kind of revelations. I vaguely remember preaching this mantra during Entre in Action last year. Now, my delivery might not have been top-notch, but apparently a Chinese wise-person agrees with the sentiment.

It's a timeless lesson for those trying to start, invent, create, redefine, and improve. And it's continuing to become oh-so-true as there is never less stuff to get done with each ensuing day.

Perfection is for fairy tales and middle school.

Taking book smarts to the bank

Two U students took a business launched for a class project and continued to run it after graduation. Now they plan to take their student-themed Alumni Advisor to campuses across the country. And they're well on their way...

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