The dangerous of optimizing ur business

Optimizing:” Making something more effective.”

That sounds good right? I got a landing page, it converts well I’m gonna make it convert better. I got a sales department that sells a few goods, I’m gonna optimize it and make them sell more. I got a website it gets some traffic imma SEO and get more.

What’s the problem w that?

The problem is that you’re not necessarily becoming more effective at your main goal.

(Assuming your company has got one which it prob doesn’t, except make more money.)

Instead you’re becoming more efficient. Which means becoming better at something. Here’s the thing, what if you’re becoming better at doing the wrong thing.

You’re optimizing SEO and get more traffic but because you’re basically gaming the system google changes the rules and you get wiped out.

You’re optimizing sales and you get more sales but you didn’t notice user trust has gone down, ur sales staff has become more pushy, the friendly sales rep who genuinely wanted what’s best for users (and who was loved by users) has been pushed out by the new system and LTV (life time value) of a customer has gone done. Referrals hv disappeared and market share is declining.

The problem w optimizing complex systems is that you don’t have all the data. What r all the things that you don’t see on ur balance sheet?

Y are you not optimizing the relationship w your wife using some proxy? Well, that’s the same reason you should be weary of doing the same in biz.

Instead, optimize for users satisfaction. No business has ever gone bankrupt from being too loved by its users and loving its users back too much.

If you optimize the output of some machine that makes widgets, you sacrifice flexibility.. suddenly the widgets aren’t in demand anymore and now you got huge costs and no revenue.

If you optimize to make your users happy you can find out what they want before the market forces you. You can disrupt yourself. While it still won’t be pretty, at least you live to fight another day.

Always be cautious w optimization and realize the sum of its parts doesn’t equal the whole. U can optimize everything and end up w users hating you, like the majority of modern companies today.

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Youngling & Feynman

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Turning Good Companies Into Extraordinary Ones.

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