How To Become Indispensable?

When an economy is down and the propensity to save increases, people will generally start making cuts to their budgets.

The first thing you do is get rid of overheads that at this point is considered a luxury.

For example, recently I unsubscribed to Asana, Hiver, and a few other non-essential tools that were nice to have, but their functions can be replicated with excel and other cheaper software. They won't do the same job as well, but, they work.

It led me to think - Is my company indispensable?

What Questions Do You Ask Yourself Before Stopping A Service?

When I thought about it, I usually ask;

1. Does this make my company money?
2. Can the task be replicated with another product?
3. Can the tasks be done in-house?
4. Would it cost me more in time spent if I didn't give it to someone else to do?

So for example

• Website SEO - It will make me money. There are free tools, but they aren't as effective. It can be done in-house, but I would probably spend more time on it, forcing me to shift focus and this will have significant impact somewhere else. - So, keep it.
• Expensive WMS - It organises and streamlines the flow and having integration to webstores and marketplaces are a big seller. It can be replicated by other softwares, but it will increase our time, meaning less packages packed per hour. However, due to the associated cost, there are times when we lose money as the investment is quite high.

So, in this way of thinking, is Flybear Indispensable?

• We don't make people money directly, but we are able to help the customer experience. This could help a bit in re-orders as well as by getting our clients good reviews.
• Our services can't be replicated except by competitors doing the same, but it can be done in-house. For smaller scale, you can do fulfilment from your house, your office, or even your shop lot.
• At small scale, it would probably cost less to fulfil by yourself. At large scale, and if its sustainable, then fulfilling by yourself is also cheaper.

So no, we are not dispensable. We could be replaced quite easily by work arounds and other ways of doing things.

Looking Back At What I've Learnt

Thinking about what I've learnt from all the courses I've attended, I know that a strategy needs to be form to ensure we are offering something more in order to be seen as indispensable.

For me, to be indispensable as a B2B provider, we need to help in sales generation directly. In essence, the more we help someone sell, the more packages we can fulfil.

I have yet to develop this idea, but it might really have to do with my past experience in content and marketing, which is funny cause I really did not want to go back to it.

But I'll keep you all up to date on this!