I have just finished reading The Dip by Seth Godin and highly recommend it to newsagents. Don’t be put off by it’s small size – 80 pages – or that it looks like another ho hum American guru book, The Dip is a good read. It is a book about that moment in the middle of something you are doing where you face giving up or working harder to achieve success. It is the make or break moment of your day, a project or something even bigger. How we respond determines our success.
In The Dip, Seth Godin encourages us to quit – to quit if you are not going to get beyond The Dip and achieve success in the project, relationship or other activity you are stuck in. His approach to strategic quitting is refreshing.
This book is relevant to Australian newsagents because so much time every day is spent on what I would call busy work, stuck in the rut of The Dip. Newsagents kicking goals in their businesses are those who have quit some of this busy work and used the time saved to get through The Dip to greater success.
In my own newsagency I would say that selling the newspaper home delivery round is a good example of quitting unproductive activity so the business can get through The Dip. This decision to quit improved our bottom line and released considerable manpower resources for use in building the retail side of the business. While we did this prior to reading Seth’s book, we now have a useful context through which to consider this and, indeed, see other opportunities for quitting so that the bigger goals may be achieved.
The Dip is not for process workers – people who have their heads down and are only interested in being busy with what is in front of them. The Dip is for entrepreneurs, those who want to excel and those looking beyond the horizon.
Mark,
A newagent can’t just sell off their home delivery round though can they? If they sell it off, do they also lose their subagents? I would have thought sub agents were a profitable part of the business for most newsagents….perhaps even the most profitable part. Perhaps not in your case however.
Ted, yes, they can. There are two contracts: retail and distribution. I sold my distribution contract. Sub agents are only profitable if high volume and or you have many. I had four. Mark