Leaders Read#108

👋 Hello everyone,

Jeff Bezos said, “If you’re only focused on your competition, you will never innovate.”

Here are a few resources you might have missed:

• Book notes: The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink

• Three of my favorite book takeaways on Team Dynamics and Collaborations

• All 199 Book notes for your enjoyment

• Catch-up: #1 - #107 Leaders Read Newsletters

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📚 Book Summary:

This week's book is "Blue Ocean Strategy" by W. Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne.

This book, published by Harvard Business Review, contains dense business language in places. It does, however, have some really valuable chapters at the beginning of the book. The book is about standing out from your competition, actually, completely leaving them behind.

One of my favorite takeaways from the book is this:

"Think past your current customers. Tier one is your customer base. Tier two is customers who either think the product is too advanced or different. Tier three is the people who would never think the product could be helpful."

✅ Actionable advice:

Amazon didn't just scale retail—instead, they challenged their own area of focus. AWS revenues now exceed Amazon's retail earnings due to the strategic realization that leveraging and expanding the cloud infrastructure they initially developed for themselves could strengthen their success. 1)Take 15 minutes with your notebook. 2)Draw a three-circle bullseye, labeling the center "customer," the middle ring "hesitant customer," and the outer ring "skeptical customer." 3)Ask yourself: "What would have to be true, or change in our offering today, to move a 'skeptical customer' to Tier two?" That is a strategic move to identify one group that's never been part of your customer conversation.

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Have a great week!