Are You Running Your Business With a Crowd Mentality?

I’m always amazed when I meet business owners or executives who think that they can simply copy someone else’s successful action and it will automatically be successful for them.

While the concept makes sense, it’s dangerous to assume that it’s a simple “cut and paste” process. Simply copying what another organization does not mean it will be successful for your organization.

Yes, you should study what others do and “adapt” those tactics that make sense to your business. The keyword is what you do to “adapt” that technique.

When you just “copy and paste” what others do into your business, you quickly lose your identity and what makes you and your business unique to your buyers. In other words, you’re following the crowd and you become more concerned with monitoring average performance versus creating significant differentiators for your business. I learned a long time ago that the definition of average is the best of the worst and the worst of the best. Hardly a place where you should expect to be successful either in the short-term or, for that matter, the long-term as well.

All of this results in you running your business with a crowd mentality. A crowd mentality gives you a false sense of security; that is, you think you’re doing the right thing because everybody else in your crowd is doing it also. Remember what Yogi Berra once said, “Don’t always follow the crowd, a lot of people go there and it gets too crowded.”

While it’s true that there may be safety in numbers, to achieve success you have to be able to take a risk and break out from the crowd so that you get noticed for the value you offer your buyers.