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Businesses could learn a lot from hunters and farmers, says entrepreneur and innovation expert Jeremy Gutsche.
In giving the keynote address at the CPA's national conference in Toronto, the MBA and CFA told the audience most businesses fail over time because they fall into the "farmer's" three traps and those that are successful over decades have learned the three keys of the "hunter's" strategy.
Farmers, he said, learned 10,000 years ago to cast seed on the ground or domesticate animals for food through an iterative process.
"They then do exactly what they did the last year to grow a crop," he said. It's this reliance on established repetitive process which is the first trap, with the other two being pro- tectiveness and complacency.
"Once we find success we repeat every decision," said Gutsche, who grew up in Calgary and learned the nature of entrepre- neurism from his father, Sig, a suc- cessful serial business starter who was the much loved former owner of the CFL's Calgary Stampeders. "We set up a brand wall and opti- mize what we have and we block out the future."
But the next big idea is coming up, and it's going to be better and faster, he said, and businesses must learn to optimize the hunter's tools to survive.
Those attributes are a 180- degree turn from the farmer's traps, he said - an insatiable hunger and appetite for more, a driven curiosity and finally, a willingness to destroy everything you've created to that point to risk trying something new.
Gutsche, founder of Trendsetter. com, a website where entrepreneurs float their ideas and the savvy pick out what's hot and what isn't, is no slouch in business himself. He's grown a $1 billion investment port- folio for a bank and counsels on trends to 300 major brands. He's also author of...