Doug DavidoffI recently met with a new client at Starbucks to discuss how Imagine Business Development may be able to impact their go-to-market strategy. You may be thinking, “Big Deal.” The ‘big deal’ is that it’s not a ‘big deal.’ We think nothing of Starbucks (or any other venue) being a place to discuss important matters. Imagine, however, how you would have reacted to this as recently as five years ago? It’s amazing how different ‘normal’ has become.
This got me thinking. What else is different? I wondered: can you build a company with $20 million in gross profits without a single employee? (Why did I pick $20 million? No real reason, it seemed like a good place to start) Could you build this company and create equity value? Can you, in essence, outsource everything – sales, marketing, HR, technology, and service?
I think the answer is that you can; and if you can, you have to rethink everything we’ve accepted in the past about hiring and building a business. It means employees are not a requirement. I’m not endorsing the idea of no employees; I’m just asking you to think about it.
I think you can build a company like this, because the inherent value of any company is the intellectual property and wisdom they create. Wisdom is not a commodity. The job of your business and mine is to unlock the value of our intellectual property and our wisdom for the benefit of our customers. In any case, we should not ever allow ourselves to be slaves to old paradigms.