The Woman In The Red Dress 💃

Hey there and welcome back for another bite to chew on.

We hope you're crushing your todo-list thus far - and are ready to take just 3 minutes and 40 seconds to reflect on a few things with us.

In this week's newsletter - we're going to spice things up 🌶️ (again)

Why?

Because we're Indians, and we love to spice things up.

Obviously.

Okay. "Get to the point."

The point is that this week's newsletter will be less about "Do this, Don't do this, or This is what we've learned" - but more sort of open-reflections that we've had over the last couple of weeks.

Thereby…

Giving you some "Food for thought" to "Chew On" during your lunch break.

Okay - we're getting too funny now. Let's dive into it.

Btw, before we dive in - remember to check out our newest episode of Chew On This with Ryan Babenzien (The founder of Jolie Skin Co)

He gives a full-blown masterclass on building a DTC brand that you don’t want to miss out on. Just saying

The podcast is brought to you by Tapcart. The leading mobile-app provider for Shopify DTC brands that want to retain their customer longer, make more money, and build a community of raving fans

Now back to the newsletter…

The Women In The Red Dress - Hot or Not?

If you've ever seen "The Matrix" you know there's this scene where Neo gets distracted by "the women in the red dress", and Morpheus then asks him if he was listening.

He says yes, and then looks back again to find a gun pointed to his head.

The moral of the story?

In business - we see tons and tons of "Women in red dresses" every day.

They're just disguised as that shiny new object…

That new business opportunity…

Or that new product that we want to sell…

The problem, however, is that we only have so much bandwidth and focus.

Meaning sometimes we can get so caught up in chasing that new opportunity or looking at that new "Woman in the red dress" - but what we don't realize is that…

Because we're looking at that new woman, we lose our current woman (to continue that analogy).

Of course, we're talking about businesses here and not women - so the nuances are a bit different.

And that makes us think: "Are the women in the red dress" really ALL BAD in business - or are there benefits to having multiple businesses instead of only one?

On one hand, having multiple businesses gives you some sort of risk diversification. You spread your eggs in more baskets, meaning if one basket falls - you can still keep going.

But on the other hand, doing this also spreads your focus thin and because of that - you can't go ALL IN on one business and make that the market leader in whatever category.

Like - it's arrogant to think that we can beat Vital Proteins (A collagen company) if we only have 40% of our attention and focus on building Obvi.

… if they have 100% focus on beating us every single day of the week.

But on the other hand, spreading our risk across multiple brands also gives some form of security in some way.

So…

Chew on that! And let's discuss.

What are your thoughts? 100% focus on one business, or divided focus onto many. What's the best way?

We don't know the answer either - which is why we're just throwing up some of our reflections for you to chew on too.

If you want to share your thoughts on this, then go comment on this tweet. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Also: Credit has to be given where credit is due - so shoutout to Alex Hormozi for the "Women in the red dress" analogy from The Matrix. The credit for that analogy is all his - not ours.

Grind All Day? Or Think All Day?

Another thing we've been thinking a lot about lately is this notion of "grinding" / "working hard" all day…

Meaning putting in many hours of "on-the ground" work.

Vs.

The notion of thinking, resting, and reflecting - and then working intensively for a couple of hours to implement what you have been thinking about.

Quite frankly, a lot of people like to "brag" about how many hours they work.

… and to be honest: Sometimes, we also have the tendency to think that we can solve anything simply by throwing more hours at it.

But we've realised that as your company grows, you need to think more than you do "ground-work."

And the reason is simple.

One great idea that has been well-thought-about for 100 hours can put us ahead of our competition.

But 100 hours of doing the same things we've always done won't necessarily put us ahead.

However…

There are nuances to this that you must understand.

The biggest nuance is the size of your company and how short a time ago you started it.

If you're a rather new company or doing low 7-figures in sales or less - then by ALL MEANS.

You need to work hard.

Execute fast.

And do a lot of volume.

That's how you get past 7-figures in sales.

But once you approach close to 8-figures or so, you already have put the foundation in place. And chances are you also have enough money to hire a handful of people.

So now your time is better spent thinking about how to make big leaps rather than being in the trenches all day.

At least, that's our take on this.

But we're definitely open to changing our standpoint and getting challenged on the way we think.

So do this:

1) Chew on this, and reflect on what your thoughts are on this

2) Either reply to us here by email or hit us up on Twitter/LinkedIn and let us know where you think our thoughts are flawed or where you agree with us.

Agency of the week