What does a square watermelon have to do with business excellence?

That's An Odd Question...But I'm Glad You Asked...

Because I am in the business of creating “Square Watermelon” businesses…!?

No, not businesses that sell square watermelons, but businesses that easily innovate out of nothing, in a market where innovation might be considered unnecessary or irrelevant or even impossible.

Yes, that is a real thing. The square watermelon is grown in Japan, originally in a small region, a small group of farms. The reason the square watermelon was invented was because as watermelons are large, heavy and round, they are hard to handle and waste a lot of space at every stage, from picking, to packing, to shipping, to storing, to displaying, to refrigerating, even to cutting and eating. But they taste great…so we have learned to put up with it.

But in Japan, where space is at an even greater premium than most other places in the world, these problems were amplified.

So a humble farmer, of a humble fruit wanted to make things better. He didn’t want to change to growing and selling something else, but he also didn’t want to settle for the way things were. He just wanted what he had, to be done better. So he experimented and refined and experimented…and the square watermelon was born.

The square watermelon developed a completely NEW Market for itself. It no longer competed with  normal round watermelons. Many people who bought watermelons continued to buy round watermelons to eat…but a very good number of people started buying square watermelons, at a significantly higher price than the round ones. And very soon, they were no longer buying them just to eat, in many instances they were buying them to display. Square watermelons created a new market…a luxury decorative furnishing…at a luxury decorative furnishing price…and as a perfect gift for the person who has everything…at a luxury “gift” pricing. It was no longer a humble “Watermelon”…it was a luxury “Square Watermelon”.

A Better Watermelon?...or More Profit?...That is the Question!

But imagine for a moment if that humble farmer (business-person) was focussed on Profit as his Goal…on making more money. Do you think he would have attempted something so inconceivable? Would he have wasted time, energy, money on experimenting and refining? Not likely. And so it is in business, if Profit is your Goal, it is unlikely you will prioritise “making things better”, enough to come up with an Innovation that can provide you with a Valuable Differentiation that puts you into your own New Market with little or no competition, increased prices and increased demand from customers.

And so the very humble square watermelon is a perfect example of DIFFERENTIATION that has INCREASED VALUE and creates a completely NEW MARKET for itself without any competition and consequently can set a completely different PRICE and OWN the market to make SUPER-PROFITS. But the secret is to focus on making things better…not on Profit.

The secret to the square watermelon though, was NOT that someone was looking to MAKE MORE MONEY (Profit as the Goal), which as business-owners we have been fed and can’t help but to believe is the Goal. It was NOT that he was looking specifically to INNOVATE (innovation as the Goal as so many consultants will convince you that you need to do). No, the secret to great INNOVATION, to great DIFFERENTIATIONS is that they don’t ever start out this way…they start out with wanting to make something BETTER because the way it IS is not good enough.

And THAT is what ultimately leads to Innovation, through to Differentiation, to a New Market with good demand and little or no competition, to Price-Making and to Profit-Growth.

But, that Square Watermelon developed a very profitable niche almost by chance…an  unintended and unexpected niche in luxury furnishings and luxury gifts…that farmer could have never foreseen these possibilities. He simply started with a goal to make things better… 

So How Do I Get Me One of Them There Square Watermelons?

I don’t just create square watermelon businesses. My process has 2 distinct advantages over that humble square watermelon.

1. My process doesn’t require you to sacrifice time, energy and money on something that, well, let’s just say, might not work…like that square watermelon…I mean, who would have known how good that story would end? It seems a pretty ridiculous and fanciful pursuit that is unlikely to end in an actual square watermelon, that people would pay a lot more money for, and that would separate itself completely from the rest of the watermelon industry and market to create a new category without competition? You don’t want to waste time, energy and money going down a rabbit-hole to end up without a Valuable Differentiation. My process guarantees you end up with a Valuable Differentiation.

2. Lets face it, most innovations like the I-Phone, in fact, like our humble watermelon, can be copied by our competition (others now grow the Square Watermelon)…even bettered by them (Samsung Android…the Heart-Shaped Watermelon).

Yes, that IS a Heart-Shaped Watermelon…it hasn’t been photoshopped.

I don’t just create Square Watermelons (or Heart-Shaped Watermelons)…and guarantee a worthwhile investment in a Valuable Differentiation. My process also makes it very difficult, almost impossible for anyone to copy your Square Watermelon, making your Innovation and Profits and Growth, sustainable over the long-term.

So if you want to do something different, something better, than everyone else in your industry, lets talk.