Can you make your own business obsolete before someone does it for you?
Are you holding onto products or services just because they’ve always worked—even if customers aren’t interested anymore? What if trimming the dead weight in your business could make space for more profit, innovation, or just more joy in your day-to-day? In this episode, I explore the importance of constantly evaluating what you offer, being willing to cut what’s not working, and why it’s crucial to stay one step ahead—even if others start copying you.
Listen to this new 6-minute episode for insight on deciding what to keep, what to cut, and how staying proactive can keep your business thriving.
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/
Can you make your business obsolete before someone does it for you? Listen to this episode. See where I’m going. Hey, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast.
This is a phrase I’ve used over the years for myself as well as for you and my clients, which is, can you make your own business obsolete before someone does it to you?
See, we do need to know what’s going on. We need to know what other people are doing, but we also need to know what’s going on just in general, in the world, in our community, in technology.
And if we’re doing the same thing we’ve always done the same way, that works for a while, and then after a while, we could wake up one day and find out that doesn’t work anymore, right?
Maybe some of the things you’re doing in your business, people don’t want to buy anymore. I have this, believe me.
DVDs, right? You guys remember those silver coasters, right? Those little Frisbee things, right? DVDs, and then nobody’s buying those.
And then CDs, and then nobody was buying those, right?
I tried an online learning platform that I think a dozen people wanted to sign up for.
So I’m constantly innovating.
And this is one of those things where AI is certainly part of it, but it’s not the only part of it, because you are in a business that does physical things for people.
You are helping them have amazing days, whether it’s the venue, the food, whether it’s the decor, whether it’s the music, the photography, the video, a lot of this stuff.
AI can aid you in your business, but it’s not going to do your job, right?
The phrase I’ve said on another podcast was, you know, AI isn’t going to take your job, but somebody who knows how to use it might.
But let’s just talk about your business, the things that you’re doing now.
There is a time when you want to say, I’m not going to do these things anymore.
I’m going to try something else.
And I know my business completely changed because of AI.
But again, I don’t want to make this just about AI because there are services that I don’t offer anymore that I used to.
There are products that I don’t offer anymore because I used to.
And when I was doing DVDs, when I started in 2011, when I started my independent business, after I left the knot, I made DVDs.
I had five DVDs at the first wedding, MBA and a hardcover book.
And I remember my DVDs were printed on them with custom printed sleeves.
And there were some other people at the event, not many, but a few that had DVDs they were offering, but they.
They printed them on their own printer in their office, or maybe they used a Sharpie on it.
And there was a big difference in the look between them.
And the next year, guess what?
Some of those people had more professionally printed things.
So if they were using a Sharpie, maybe they went to print it in their office.
Print in their office.
Maybe they had them printed on there.
But then I had 12 DVDs, so somebody had one or two, and now I had 12, and then next year I had 17, and the next year I had 24.
And then a year or two after that, nobody was buying DVDs.
That was it.
And I’m sitting with hundreds, if not probably thousands of them at that time.
And people went to cd.
They wanted to listen.
Listen on the go.
Listen on any device.
Great.
I switched to CDs again.
Custom printed CDs, I had bundles of CDs.
And the same thing happened again.
People would copy me.
And then the next year I would have different.
And that’s why I tell people what I’m doing.
I show people what I’m doing.
Because if you copy what I’m doing, by the time you figure it out, I’m moving on to something else.
Because I didn’t just do that thing that day.
Just like you didn’t just create a new product or a service that day.
It took work to get that to the point where you could do that at a high level.
And if somebody wants to catch up to you, they have to do that work too.
So I’m constantly innovating, trying to come up with new things.
Ask Alan Anything is a new thing.
My book, AI for the Real World is a new thing.
I have, you know, other things that I do in my business that they.
I didn’t do and then all of a sudden seem like a good idea.
I tried some of them work, some of them don’t work.
Tried something last year that cost me thousands of dollars to create and the technology and the programming and all, and it flopped.
Move on.
So we move on to that.
So what are you doing in your business that you’ve been doing for years that’s no longer profitable?
People aren’t interested in buying as much anymore.
Or maybe you’re just bored of.
Because that’s okay too.
It’s okay to move on.
If it doesn’t bring you joy.
Like I’ve said before, I do what I do because it brings you value and it brings me joy.
So when is it time to cut something or, you know, look at that.
What was the book?
The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz, the same guy that wrote Profit First.
He talks about that in his book that to grow the giant pumpkins that they sell, you know, the state fairs that win these prizes that are, you know, thousand pounds or more.
They start with the seeds from last year’s Big Pumpkin winner, right?
You want to.
It’s just like the horse that sires all these other horses for racing, right?
The one that won.
You want to have that one be the father of your horse, right?
You do this and then as they start growing and of course, you take care of them well.
Pumpkins grow on a vine on the ground, and you can see the ones that are growing bigger and which ones are not, and you start clipping off the small ones so that all of the attention and nutrients go to the bigger ones until you’re left with one or two that you just keep feeding and you just keep taking care of and it grows bigger and bigger.
And that’s the same in our businesses.
You know, not everything brings us profit, not everything brings us joy.
So I’ve cut many things over the years that either they didn’t bring me profit or I just didn’t enjoy doing them and I’m not going to do them anymore.
That’s it.
I’m not going to.
Right?
Even if it’ll bring me profit, because it has to do those two things.
It has to bring you value and it has to bring me joy.
So think about your business.
Now’s a good time as any, right?
When’s the best time to plant a tree?
20 years ago.
When’s the next best time?
Today.
When’s the best time to look at the things that you’re doing?
Probably months ago, if not last year.
Second best time is today.
And say, are some of these things taking up time that I can be putting into other things?
Whether they’re business related or personal related, you only have a limited amount of time.
So is there something that should be trimmed off so that you can pay more attention to things you want to do or have time to innovate and try new things?
So can you make your current business model obsolete before someone does it for you?
Think about it.
Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected] or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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