It’s spring time and baseball season is finally upon us! I’m a big believer in small ball strategy in baseball where you focus on higher percentage ways of getting runners on base (singles and walks) and advancing them into scoring position (bunts, steals, hit-and-runs, etc) and manufacturing runs (sacrifice flys, squeezes, etc) . It requires precision, methodical execution and ultimately discipline. The opposite strategy is to go for the “big-inning” where you focus on extra-base hits, homeruns, and try to put up crooked numbers, i.e. 5, 6, 7 runs. For good reason, it’s much harder to get these innings so the percentage that you’ll succeed is much lower. Both strategies are capable of winning, so I’m not going to downplay the “big-inning” strategy, but I’m going to argue that for startups, you should employ a small ball strategy.
I’ve been asked on numerous occasions, how did you build so much traffic to your sites? Generally, I know that the person asking the question is looking for the “silver bullet” or the simple answer that they can employ themselves. The honest answer is that we’ve played small ball to eventually get the traffic. Put it another way, we built a process to test a multitude of hypotheses and focused on those that worked the best. We try to string together a bunch of singles through SEO, viral marketing, product development, community development, partnerships, to build a large site. If I walked an entrepreneur through the answers, she’d never be able to replicate the success because she didn’t go through the process which is really the secret sauce.
Let’s say that you run a donut shop. You want to double sales in 2009. The “big-inning” strategy would be to focus on one idea and throw all your resources behind it to see if you get the big win. Perhaps, you decide that the big-inning strategy is to sell wholesale to commercial customers. You bet it all, you hire salespeople, you ramp up production, you ramp up advertising, and you invest ahead of the curve. Many of you might think this is a good strategy, but especially in 2009 - this can be disastrous. You could kill your company.
Small ball strategy would dictate, let’s test with a small population and see if we can make it work with one corporate customer and then optimize for more - then step on the gas pedal. You don’t hire salespeople, you don’t ramp up production, you don’t ramp up advertising and you don’t invest ahead of the curve until you’ve proven the model on a small scale. You personally make the first sale, you personally make sure it’s profitable, and then you may find that customer starting to refer new clients and you grow organically. This may allow you to also pursue other small ball strategies such as testing out a pricing model, etc. The idea is to test small then push.
What are you betting on in 2009? Can you convert your big-inning strategy into a bite size small ball strategy? It’ll allow you to figure out what works, optimize, and then ultimately scale something that you’ve proven. It’s by no means easy, it’s very hard just like anything that is rewarding. I think the small ball strategy will work just as well for you as it did for me. Let me know what you think. Now, if only the Mariners would listen to me…
I agree with the small ball strategy. Similar to a diversification strategy. Not betting everything on one big customer (inning). If that one fails you are toast.
I am employing the small ball strategy on all my sites, and am planning to use many internet tools to drive traffic. I am learning them one at a time, so by the end of the year I should have several that are actively working for me.
Andy, I couldn’t agree more about this post. You’re spot on. I once took a client through the process of dissecting their planned million dollar television campaign (which does not get you a whole lot in that space), and broke it out into thirty different “small ball” strategies. Fortunately we ended up going with the small ball strategies which resulted into a number of base hits as well as a few triples and doubles. Great post.
Andy, Great post. My experience tells me this is the only way to do it. This approach allows you to drive your decisions based on consumer/customer behaviors and responses - making for a much better base for growth. Once you’ve figured out the right engine to build, you can add as much jet fuel as you want…
thanks for the post. I have made the mistake of thinking too big before actually getting there (havent gotten there yet) and have wasted dollars and alot of time that could have gone else where into building my business.
Now Im a bit more conservative and focused on the smaller steps instead of jumping ahead of myself.
I cant agree with you more about proving your business model on a smaller scale and then increase from there.
I agree, I think too many people especially online think that their website will be the next Google or Youtube and usually burn their resources up before they are really ever ready to launch. Slow and steady wins the race.
The big inning strategy is dangerous and unless you have a team of power hitters, like an agency, it is not prudent. The small ball strategy is definitely the best for 99% of businesses out there. And yes it pulls from the same ideas as diversification and not putting all your hopes on one or two things. This way when one fails you have 5 others than can work.
I completely agree with this small ball strategy and employ it on all aspects of my own business. So far it as worked out very, very well.
This is one of those posts that’s just great because it states the obvious points in a flavor that everyone can understand. With the technologies available to the entrepreneur today, the odds of gaining benefit from organic growth are much higher than even five years ago. The more embedded your business is within a particular market niche (selling rare cabernets produced in California) versus the larger segment (California wines), the better your chances of organic growth from grass roots marketing. Just my observations.
Thanks for the wise advice. Small steps are easier to negotiate and since they result in engaging across a broader spectrum of clients, they chances of success are greater even if slower.
Thanks Andy, that’s actually exactly what I’m trying to focus on right now: instead of half-finishing a huge idea (crowd created social news was what I was tinkering with), I’m focusing on a simple little digital product , http://www.mysinglepropertywebsites.com, in an industry I understand. Surprisingly, it’s been more motivating than I thought because I get the positive feedback from dozens of small steps: a new customer setting up their single property website, higher SEO ranking, etc… they may sound boring but it’s exciting to me!
Fantastic advice and I loved the baseball metaphor, it fit so perfectly. Although going for the “Big Inning” is tempting for startup companies it is just not practical and could ultimately set them up for failure. I especially loved your portion about making the first sale yourself and see in what areas it was profitable and how it could be improved. Thank you Andy for your article. Go Mariners!
Very good post, i totally agree, it’s better to go small and see how thing goes. Many decision makers just don’t know this, how often have we seen business go too big too fast, just being too hungry. I think that if you want to put food on the table, you have to start buy getting the basic stuff, to try things, then you think about going larger. Great post!