[Issue 34] Levers That Can Break Ceilings, Part 2
How to increase output without spending more resources
[Photo by Loris Boulinguez on Unsplash]
The Odysseus Files, Issue 34
Playing Your Own Game, Part 11
The “Quality vs Quantity” Debate
[Reminder: this is Part 2 of a miniseries on levers you can use to break through time, energy, & revenue ceilings in your business. If you haven’t yet, read Part 1 here. This week we’re talking about how to improve the ratio of the number of resources you need to invest to create a given volume of output.]
Last week we dove deep into an argument for increasing the volume of your output (read: assets for your business) in order to speed up the timeline for bringing a new product, idea, etc. to market. But the obvious objection to this idea is: what about quality?
First, increasing volume & iterating faster inherently means your work will move more rapidly to align with the needs of your audience. So, as long as you’re being intentional about your Trial & Error cycle (see Part 1 at the link above for a refresher on what this is), increasing volume will actually improve quality over time.
Second, “quality” is too subjective. Let’s replace it with a better concept, one that is easier to define: uniqueness.
Different beats better every day of the week. And it’s easier to measure as well.
If your output is differentiated from that of others in your space, you won’t have a “quantity vs quality” debate in the first place. (In fact, once again, by speeding up your Trial & Error cycle, you’ll figure out what makes you different - and get that difference out into the world - much faster.)
So, how do you create & maintain what makes you different as you increase your output?
How to Reduce the Ratio of Effort Units to Output Volume
By following the “3 Ps Pyramid.”
Positioning. Packaging. Polish.
A lot of people are worried about the polish stage – how a given piece of output looks. This is about production value. If you don’t have the resources to invest in beefing this stage up, you might worry about its performance, especially in comparison to what someone else does.
(Or, you may just be blissfully unaware. And, if you haven’t developed the bottom two layers, you might be adding to the noise that makes marketing online so challenging today.)
But if you start at the bottom & work your way up, you can afford to leave the polish phase for later - once you have the resources to invest.
Positioning
Instead, you begin at the bottom: nail your positioning (like we’ve been talking about the last few issues) once, and you’ve got a solid foundation for everything else you do. And you don’t have to reinvent yourself constantly! Which is where all too many Effort Units go in small businesses.
Also, it allows you to create greater brand consistency - which is a revenue driver in & of itself. One study found that 89% of respondents attributed some revenue growth to brand consistency, with 33% saying it contributed 20%+ to their bottom line.1
Packaging
Next (and where you’ll spend most of your time), work on your packaging. Everything - from your content to your advertising to your offers - can be packaged in ways to emphasize the positioning difference, to help you stand out in a noisy market.
Creative packaging will do a lot of your heavy lifting for you: it can be the difference between creating over & over again (how most content is treated) vs creating once & leveraging for a long time (turning output into assets).
Unlike positioning, you’ll need to think about your packaging on an ongoing basis, but it still gives you a framework for each piece of your output efforts: a blog post or newsletter issue, social media posts, emails, etc.
You can combine packaging at the messaging & format levels to give yourself a single “vault” of ideas, concepts, phrases, stories, data points, etc. that can then be expressed in different ways across different platforms. (If you’re not familiar, this is called a messaging platform, and is super valuable to develop for your brand.)
Not only does this facilitate brand & messaging consistency, it also enables a higher volume of output, because you don’t have to start from scratch each time. You’ve got your vault of resources to draw on.
When you think of it this way, your positioning & packaging become levers that can enable you to use fewer Effort Units to achieve a higher volume (and thus a faster Speed to Market).
Now, instead of having to double your Effort Units from 40 to 80 in order to reduce your Speed to Market timeline from 24 to 12 months (per our example from last week), you may only have to increase them to 60 units.
(Or keep them the same, but still reduce your Speed to Market timeline to, say, 18 months.)
Ok, we’ve covered a lot of ground:
How increasing volume of output can help you reach momentum faster (which, in turn, gives you better data + results you can pour into further & faster growth)
How increasing volume requires increasing available Effort Units (an abstract representation of your hours + budget available to invest in marketing)
How, rather than jeopardizing “quality,” blending a higher output with the 3 Ps Pyramid allows you to prioritize difference (and therefore reduce the additional Effort Units needed to increase volume + get results)
This all sounds great, but what about when you do need to increase your available Effort Units? (Ya know, only one of the biggest challenges facing small business owners & creators. No pressure. 😬)
Just like increasing output is a lever to increase your Speed to Market & the 3 Ps Pyramid is a lever to reduce the ratio of Effort Units to output volume, there are levers you can pull to increase your available Effort Units as well. We’ll jump into these next time.
Marq, “2021 Brand Consistency Report.”