Monday, July 13, 2009

When Dairymen get Innovative

,,,

A couple weeks ago, there was a great cartoon by Leigh Rubin in my local paper -

Now I only know a little about dairies; the cows have to be milked twice a day every day. The dairyman sells his milk to a distributor/co-op, at a price largely set outside of his control.

I like this cartoon because the dairyman is dealing with his circumstances in at least three innovative ways:

  1. He is getting out of having to milk this cow, since it looks as though the customer would get the milk themselves - saving him time.
  2. He is selling direct to the customer.
  3. He is selling the benefit of the milk bath, rather than selling the milk itself.

Each of these can also be applied to you as an entrepreneur:

  1. Can you turn something you have to do, into something valuable to someone else that they would do themselves?
  2. Can you avoid the middleman and sell direct to customers?
  3. Can you sell your product to a different market altogether, using benefits ancillary to your primary market?

My guess is that dairymen have had to be very innovative to stay in business, so how about you?

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