Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Forget conventional wisdom. In Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It (HarperBusiness, $25 cloth), author Al Ries argues against growing your company through rampant diversification. To the contrary, he atBODYs, the company that tries to be all things to all people ends up being--you guessed it--nothing to no one.
"It should [be] obvious that a company cannot keep expanding its product line forever," Ries explains. "You reach a point of diminishing returns. You lose your efficiency, your competitiveness, and most ominous of all, your ability to manage a diverse collection of unrelated products and services."
As examples of what not to do, Ries points to failed attempts by companies such as Gerber, Chrysler and Liz Claiborne to expand beyond their core merchandise. "One day a company is tightly focused on a single, highly profitable product," Ries writes. "The next day the company is spread thin over many products and is breaking even or actually losing money. Brand inflation strikes again."
Interestingly, Ries maintains that the global economy makes it all the more essential for companies to set their sights on smaller targets. "The larger the market, the more specialized a company must become if it is going to prosper," he opines. "When we have truly free trade on a worldwide basis, every company in the world will have to specialize in order to survive."
Without question, Ries' perspective is one worth focusing on.
Ill Get Back To You
If you'd like to leave a message, please do so at the beep.. . ."
"Hello, this is my third message to you, and . .."
Is there anything more annoying than the unreturned phone call?You've called and you've called--but you've yet to makethe connection. What to do?
Authors Robert L. Shook and Eric Yaverbaum think they have theanswers you need in I'll Get Back to You: 156 Ways to GetPeople to Return Your Calls and Other Helpful Sales Tips(McGraw-Hill, $9.95 paper). "Because we interviewed a widearray of people from different parts of the country," Shookand Yaverbaum write, "you have a large selection of techniquesto choose from."
These techniques include everything from the straightforwardapproach (promising not to waste the other person's time) tothe truly bizarre (pretending to hypnotize the person on the otherend of the line). Whatever method you employ, the authors caution,should be determined by who your intended target is--and how good asense of humor he or she has.
First Person
What better way to learn how to handle management dilemmas thanto get solutions straight from the horse's mouth? That'sthe premise of First Person: Tales of Management Courage andTenacity (Harvard Business School Press, $19.95 cloth). Editedby Thomas Teal, this collection of Harvard Business Reviewarticles explores a range of experiences.
Take, for example, the gut-wrenching account of one businessmanfaced with an unproductive AIDS-stricken employee. "On the onehand, I knew that removing Jim was necessary to meet myresponsibilities as a manager. On the other hand, I believed thattaking action against him meant failing my responsibilities as ahuman being," he writes. "I had never had to force the .. . reassignment of an employee who was facing death."
In another scenario, a casualty of corporate downsizing reflectson his many struggles to make the transition from highly paidexecutive to highly overworked entrepreneur. He became a franchiseeto shield himself from the hazards of going it alone. That shieldwas removed, however, when his franchisor effectively wentunder.
Don't misunderstand, though: These aren't gloom-and-doomstories meant to dissuade the faint of heart. On the contrary,they're simply honest takes on the challenges that come withauthority.
