The Elusive Evergreen Business Idea
In business, you need to always be looking for new ways to get your messages out. One of the ways we do that here is by re-posting old stories to our Facebook and Twitter feeds. The process is automated, random, and sometimes turns up some old work that I’m not all that proud of.
Sometimes, flat-out decompression is the best thing you can do for yourself
Other times, it pulls up real gems from our past pontifications. Recently, this article on Mental Health Days showed up. I’m a big fan of the mental health day, and have told clients so for many years; sometimes, flat-out decompression is the best thing you can do for yourself — and your business.
Dig into that piece and you’ll see a discussion of evergreen business ideas (specifically evergreen content marketing). Content Marketing is a big deal, despite how hard it is for anyone other than huge media companies.
This piece is not about content marketing. Except where it is.
The “where it is” part has to do with content marketing’s inherent evergreen nature. Write an article, produce a video, present an on-line course, or what have you; it can last forever. Seven years later, the phone still rings here when people are looking get out of Hubspot. Even more amazing, do a search for “US Patent 7669123” (or just “Patent 7669123” or even “7669123“), and right after The US Patents Office and Google’s listings you find us. Click this image of a Google search I did this morning to see that:
Evergreen Business Ideas
So where do you find evergreen business ideas and how do you implement them?
You shouldn’t assume that evergreen business ideas will last forever
Content Marketing or otherwise, the point of this story is that evergreen thing. You shouldn’t assume that evergreen business ideas will last forever, of course, any more than evergreen trees might. But creating business processes that will last for a long time is the holy grail of business change.
Here’s a great example. Microsoft has been selling Windows for over twenty-five years, and still do, but the way they sell it has changed. Yes, you can buy Windows at retail, but it’s far more likely you’ll get it as part of a new computer. And neither of those channels are new. But if you’re using Windows 10 you’ll never need to buy upgrades. Microsoft can’t have been happy to lose that revenue channel, but they gained other evergreen revenue when they killed it. For example, Windows 10 has a “Windows Store” that you can’t really remove from your computer. There are lots of chances to buy things there, and Microsoft is not at all shy about pointing them out.
Recurring contact is a beautiful thing. Recurring revenue is even better
The store is an example of evergreen business ideas. The things sold there are sometimes evergreen business ideas. In business, recurring contact is a beautiful thing. Recurring revenue is even better.
Here’s ours, at least on the contact side: we’re chock full of evergreen business ideas. Drop us a line and let’s talk.
