Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [5]
people, it's going to be impossible to replicate. Such people are at a premium in the
marketplace. They're also expensive, thus raising the price you will have to charge for
your product.
The business model should be such that the employees needed possess the lowest possible
level of skill necessary to fulfill the functions for which each is intended. A legal firm
ought to have lawyers and a medical firm should hire doctors. But you don't need brilliant
lawyers or doctors. What you need is to create the best system through which good
lawyers and doctors can be leveraged to produce excellent results.
I can't make this stuff up. His point was that you want a cookie-cutter business that you
can scale fast, without regard for finding, nurturing, and retaining linchpin talent. He goes
on to coin the "Rule of Ordinary People."
Here's the problem, which you've already guessed. If you make your business possible to
replicate, you're not going to be the one to replicate it. Others will. If you build a business
filled with rules and procedures that are designed to allow you to hire cheap people, you
will have to produce a product without humanity or personalization or connection. Which
means that you'll have to lower your prices to compete. Which leads to a race to the
bottom.
Indispensable businesses race to the top instead.
Tough Times in Queens
Hector has it rough. Rougher than most.
Every morning, he stands on a street corner in Queens, next to the hardware store and
across the street from the Thai restaurant. Hector stands next to his six biggest
competitors, waiting for work.
Slowly, a pickup truck pulls up. The contractor behind the wheel is looking for workers,
day laborers. He knows that every morning, they'll be on this corner, waiting for him. He
rolls down the window and offers minimum wage. Which is a lot for this kind of work.
All the workers seem the same. They're bundled up against the cold, and they're willing
to work cheap. So he picks three and drives away.
Hector is left on the corner, in the cold. Maybe someone else will come by today. Maybe
not.
He's one of many, a fungible product, a nonchoice. The contractor didn't expend any time
or effort on his choice because it didn't really matter. He needed cheap physical labor and
he got it. He needed obedient workers able to follow simple instructions, and here they
were.
And Hector got nothing. Hector went home, as he often does, with nothing.
Your Street Corner
We don't want Hector's story to resonate with us, because it's disturbing.
Every business is a lot like Hector. Every business stands next to plenty of other
businesses, each striving to be like the other, but maybe a little better. Every business
waits for the next customer to come along and pick their company.
And of course, sometimes a prospect does pick a particular business. She recognizes it or
trusts it or it comes with a recommendation. But more and more (and most of the time),
she does precisely what the contractor in Queens did. She picks the cheap one. They're all
the same.
And you? Your resume sits in a stack next to plenty of other resumes, each striving to fit
in and meet the requirements. Your cubicle is next to the other cubes, each like the other.
Your business card and suit and approach to problems--all designed to fit in. You keep
your head down and you work hard and you hope you get picked.
Sounds a lot like Hector. This is uncomfortable, but it's true. The people you're hoping
will hire you, buy from you, support you, and interact with you have more choices and
less time than ever before.
How Companies (Used to) Make Money
The difference between what an employee is paid and how much value she produces
leads to profit. If the worker captures all the value in her salary, there's no profit.
As a result, capitalist profit-maximizing investors have long looked for a way to turn lowwage earners into high-value producers. Give someone who makes five dollars a day an
efficient machine, a well-run assembly