| A roar inside the lions' lair is no match for some real-world nous
Des King, Packaging News, 04 March 2009
Most people reckon they have a book inside them; best place for it, too. The same can often be true of a great business concept. For what it's worth, mine's an absolutely cracker: a food service proposition so good that I wouldn't dream of sharing it with you. Nor would I ever risk serving it up in TV's Dragons' Den, only to have it either patronised into banality or else scoffed at with derision. In fact, hang on; I'll just write a book about it instead. Two dead ducks for the price of one. Sorted.
To the mutual delight of the BBC and millions of regular viewers, a stream of erstwhile entrepreneurs far less precious than yours truly are queuing round the block to lay their innovative acumen on the line as fodder for the dragons to chomp on.
They have my admiration; that it transmutes into smug snorts of derision is what gives the programme its sizzle. For every winning recipe there¡¯s a string of souffl¨¦s that just don¡¯t to rise to the occasion. We enjoy success, but savour it most when accompanied by comparative failure.
The Easyfairs organisers cooked up their own version last month: the ¡®Lions¡¯ Lair¡¯, into which they invited seven putative innovators to pitch their shtick. True to form, there was a clear winner: a rather nifty pump mechanism, sure to be a shoo-in for any awards it cares to go for this year. It was presented with that air of calm assurance that already knows there¡¯s a tangible market in its sights. True to the TV format, it also shone in comparison with the rest of the pack, whose lesser attributes were summarily damned with faint praise or otherwise under the lions¡¯ baleful glare.
It would help all new solutions to pass through some realistic objective examination prior to chancing their arm on the shelf. If everything that came off the drawing board was the best, then what price genuine distinction? Superlatives should be just that; not ten-a-penny appendages slapped on by the copywriters.
When venturing into the real dragons¡¯ den (aka the market), you need to be appropriately armed, and recognise that not everyone wants the next best thing, so second best doesn¡¯t have to mean second-rate. Ensuring that the bullet hits the target is more a matter of taking accurate aim rather than the punch it packs.
The point was nicely made in the Lions¡¯ Lair with disarming candour by a banding machinery manufacturer. While acknowledging that there couldn¡¯t conceivably be anything new about his proposition, he explained that in order to sell more equipment he¡¯d come up with a whole host of hitherto unrealised uses to which it could be applied. It didn¡¯t win on the day nor ever would on a reality TV show, but it¡¯s just the sort of lion-taming nous that always deserves to succeed in generating new business. |
