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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Leave the Whoopie well enough alone!

I recently interviewed the operations manager from a local bakery that distributes products through out the US and Canada. One of their most popular products are whoopie pies. If you are not familiar with them - imagine two chocolate round cakes filled with a butter cream frosting center. There are many variations to the recipe - different flavors and sizes - but the traditional whoopie pie continues to be the most popular.


When I asked the operations manager from the bakery that sells a zillion whoopie pies a year how they came up with the size of their pies and if they conducted market research to determine what are their customers preferred size wise in their whoopie pies - he responded with...

"We went with the size that we already had pans for and it seems to be working so why change it."

No "fancy schmancy" market research - no study after study - no focus groups - just using what was at hand. That got me thinking that too often we over think things in our business. Too often we question things we don't need to question. Too often we over analyze and over process to the point that we stop being innovative and entrepreneurial and risk letting opportunity pass us by because we thought too much about it and failed to just go for it!

Yes - its important to plan, and to conduct market research and to change and adapt if you want to thrive and survive. But if there are parts of your business that are working and working well by all means leave them alone!

Think about it... whether its business or whoopie... sometimes you need to just go for it and if it's working for you... why change a thing!

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