Chasing New Business Opportunities: Pros & Cons

Experimenting in many areas can open your eyes to future investments, but it can also take your focus away from the core business if you let it.

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A recent column about using a structured, unfocused approach to evaluate new opportunities got a lot of attention from our readers, most of whom said they were wide-eyed entrepreneurs who like to try out many ideas and business concepts.

Most of the readers we heard from saw the article as a justification for being unfocused for the sake of being unfocused, rather than using the approach of casting a wide net as a strategic advantage. Our overall point was not that you should seek to be unfocused, but that experimenting in many areas is often a way to determine where your best bets are. A thoughtful, unfocused strategy often can help define focus in a few areas.

But our entrepreneurial nature keeps bringing us back to doing more rather than less, being more experimental, and continuing to tweak ideas and concepts rather than killing them. After all, we built our company on understanding the needs of our customers and finding new innovative ways to serve them. It's not in our nature to say, "We can't find a way to serve that customer." Hence, we perpetuate our unfocused behavior.

Some of our longtime advisors have cautioned us against condoning unfocused behavior. To summarize their objections:

When you scale a business, simple is always better than complex. Your core clients and the marketplace as a whole needs to define your offer in a way that's simple and easy to understand.As your organization grows, it will become more difficult to manage multiple priorities. For a team to succeed, it must be able to easily define the goals and objectives and focus efforts towards achieving it.As a small organization, you simply can't do many things well. Choose one or two things and be exceptional at them. When you grow, you can think about branching out.

So what should a growth company do? As we thought more about it, we think there are three relevant postures to take:

1)     Create a focused organization, aimed at a singular goal, but regularly evaluate new ideas and new business models. The leadership team can commission specific individuals or outside advisors to build a business case around a new venture. This can be done once a month or once a quarter, as to not take focus away from the primary goals of the core business.

2)     Create multiple silos or business units, each focused on their own goals. Some organizations have successfully pursued multiple foci by continually breaking into smaller teams. Each team is singularly focused on its goal, although the collective goals of the teams are diverse and potentially conflicting.

3)     Create an innovation incubator by allowing specific individuals or teams to break away from the core business to experiment with new business models. We discussed this in detail in a recent article. Direction needs to come from the top and must be very selective - i.e, it's important that the majority of the team remains focused on the core business.

If any of these elements are executed effectively, your business can take advantage of new opportunities and avoid the tunnel vision that can come from too much focus on the core business. Be unfocused, but in a thoughtful, structured way.

Share your techniques at balancing focus and innovation with us.  We can be reached at karlandbill@avondalestrategicpartners.com.

Karl Stark and Bill Stewart are Managing Directors and co-founders of Avondale, a strategic advisory firm focused on growing companies. Avondale, based in Chicago, is a high-growth company itself, and is ranked No. 95 on the 2011 Inc. 500 list. @karlstark

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Davyd Jones still chasing NFL opportunity - Star-Press

MUNCIE -- Among the many people put out by the National Football League's lockout last year were the undrafted college football players who sought opportunities at the professional level.

That group of street free agents was among the lowest priority for NFL executives as they scrambled to sign players during the brief window between the time the lockout was settled and training camps began.

Davyd Jones felt the pinch. The Central High School product completed his career as a linebacker at Ball State in the 2010 season. He hoped to get invited to an NFL team's training camp, but no offer was extended.

"A lot of teams were signing players who were already in the league," Jones said. "A lot of guys in my position got left out last year. It was a series of unfortunate events, but I'm still knocking on the door."

More than a year removed from being a college player, Jones hasn't relinquished hope of competing on the next level. He completed a combine-type workout in front of pro scouts in Atlanta last Sunday.

Two teams -- the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans -- called Jones' agent after the lockout ended, but neither team followed up with a camp offer.

"It was a heartbreaker," Jones said.

So he remained in school at Ball State last fall, continued to work out and watched NFL games on TV. Jones obtained seasonal work with UPS during the holidays.

He continues to attend classes and will graduate in May with a degree in business administration. Jones also has a job offer from First Investors, a financial services company in Indianapolis.

But his dream is to find his way to the NFL. To accomplish that, Jones has been working on improving his speed.

He beefed up from his playing weight of 216 pounds as a senior outside linebacker for the Cardinals to 235 last year. With the added weight and strength, he lost some speed.

Jones addressed that this winter when he went to Phoenix for 10 days to train with former Ball State football player and former Central High School boys track coach Cornelius Bowick. Bowick moved to Arizona in 2007 and formed High Octane Development, a training company that works with high school, middle school and club sport athletes. He also coaches football and track at Maryvale High School.

Through Bowick's program, Jones shaved a couple hundredths of a second off his 40-yard dash time, getting down to 4.65 seconds.

"The major correction we made was with his explosion, the first five steps," Bowick said. "His first three steps were short. His stance was off. We call it the drive phase."

Jones came home with a workout prescribed by Bowick to help him continue to improve his speed.

Jones, who is tied for second all-time in games played at Ball State with 50, played inside linebacker as a junior. He led the Cardinals in tackles with 100. He was moved outside as a senior, and different responsibilities within the defense caused his tackles to drop to 66.

He believes he can play linebacker or fullback in the NFL. Jones was a running back at Central.

"I want to make sure I give it my all, and hopefully an opportunity arises," Jones said. "It's my dream. If I give up on the dream, then I would always wonder, 'What if?'

"I'm approaching it (as my last shot), but I'll never give up on my dream until I just can't run anymore. I do believe I can play in the NFL. All I have to do is get a shot. Whenever I get that shot, I'm going to try vigorously, and I'm pretty sure I'll make the best of it."

Contact sports writer Doug Zaleski at 213-5813.

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