Same concept: Gas station with snacks inside.

Owner A pays a guy $150 to make his signage look better, and gets brighter lights for the evening.

Owner B looks at that and says: “Psh, what a waste of money”.

Owner A’s traffic goes up a bit. Owner B shrugs it off.

Owner A walks outside every time he sees one of his regular customers, and does a complimentary window wash.

Owner B thinks: “What an idiot. That’s not sustainable, you can’t do it for everyone. And they’re not even paying for it!”

As time goes on, Owner A continues to make small improvements to his service. Eventually he’s making 2-3x more per week than the station across the street.

Most people want to study what the smart owner does. But I think the more interesting question is: “why the heck is owner B not doing what he sees is working??”

Is it ego? Ignorance? It’s obvious he should copy what’s working, but he doesn’t.

Tom Peters argues that this is common. You can go to your direct competitors, and tell them all your trade secrets. Everything you’ve learned. They will listen to you but there will be no change in behavior.

Mohnish thought this was ridiculous & made a promise to himself that he would become a great copier of great ideas.

Picasso said: “Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.”

Don’t get me wrong. There IS a bad way to copy. Don’t copy people’s art. I’d say the gas station owner shouldn’t copy the exact signage, but the idea of “I should make my business look more approachable too” and put his own twist on it.

Ishan2 • Fwd: The One Minute Blog: Shamelessly Cloning