EP286 Forbidden City | Ken Courtright’s Today’s Growth | Growing Business Today

The Great Wall of China in Beijing is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It stood the test of time but it is still one of the greatest attractions of the world owing to its architectural grandeur and historical significance. The Great Wall was built to protect The Forbidden City against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups. You could look at your personal business and your corporation the exact same way. All great corporations have a perimeter and that’s their current product. You could have an outer wall which the SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – of your current product.

Your inner wall, the most precious thing, is the research and development of your next product line. Why is that the most precious? Most people don’t come to grips with the fact that the single most important aspect of being a business owner is to understand that you manage two businesses. You manage the business you’re in and you manage the business you’re becoming. If you don’t manage the business you’re becoming, there will come a day when you’re out of business.

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The Forbidden City

I was in China visiting my daughter. She’s a sophomore at Pepperdine and they do an abroad year in sophomore year. I was struck by how the Chinese plan their protection as a city in three different waves. They do the perimeter, outer and inner. First, I’m going to explain the Great Wall of China in Beijing, which is absolutely gargantuan. 3,100 people died in the building of the Wall. It’s one of the seven or eight wonders of the world. Listening to one of the guides, he explained that, “Here’s the Wall,” but they also had guards and sentries on the outsides of the wall and on the top of the outside walls are these forts. They had the outer ring, which is the inside of the wall where they had fire and tar. They had the inner, which are the people on the city side who were supplying all the necessary stuff for the people to defend the wall.

We went to The Forbidden City and it was more noticeable here. There is an enormous moat around the whole city and they have these 35-foot, 40-foot brick walls all around the whole city that would be the perimeter. There are vast amounts of land between that wall and the outer buildings and there’s huge land between the inner buildings. The perimeter is the moat. The outer is all the outer buildings, the sentries, and the guard post. The inner is the inner buildings where they did their work, live and different things like that.

I was struck with their planning and I’m trying to correlate this to business. In business, there is no question that you could look at your personal business and your corporation the exact same way. All great corporations have a perimeter and that’s their current product. What are you currently selling? You could have an outer wall, which is the SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of your current product and you run this every year. You also do the SWOT on your physical competitor’s products. If you hear some of my old podcast, I covered the SWOTs in great details.

The outer wall is the continual SWOT of your current product. Your inner wall, the most precious thing, is the research and development of your next product line. Why is that the most precious? Most people don’t come to grips with the fact that the single most important aspect of being a business owner is to understand that you manage two businesses. You manage the business you’re in and you manage the business you’re becoming. If you don’t manage the business you’re becoming, there will come a day when you’re out of business. My most downloaded podcast of all time is on S-Curves, the very first embryo episode. It’s not because it was number one but it’s because it’s the most impactful and honest podcast I’ve ever done. It’s as real as it gets. It’s based on a true story of a US company.

The point is when is the last time you looked at your business from a defensive standpoint? Do you have that outer perimeter? Is your product dialed in? Are you doing SWOTs as the interim row of buildings or walls to make sure that your product is as fine-tuned as it can be? The key is you’ve got to SWOT your competitors. The most sanctimonious aspect of our current business is the products we sell, I’m talking IncomeStore.com, which allowed us to hit the Inc. 5,000 list for the fourth time. Those products didn’t exist three years ago, we’re moving new products and service. Every January we SWOT the products and it tells us clearly the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and we adjust. We are always in the phase of changing and in that embryo phase.

This is episode 286 and I’m calling this The Forbidden City because a lot of people need to reflect on what it is they’re selling and look at that as the outside fortress protecting you. That is going to crumble, that outside moat is going to get taken over by a boat, that perimeter wall is going to get scaled. Your current product is going to crumble if you don’t have those inner two linings in place, long-term, you are going to be in pain.

Important Links:

• S-Curves – previous episode
• IncomeStore.com

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