Where the Money Is

I bring you another guest post by Steven Costello:

Last week I dropped my daughter off at Peconic Dunes Camp, on Long Island.

The camp assigns bunks on a first-come, first-served basis, so parents take their children as early as possible on the given morning.

Most of the families arrive before the gates even open, which results in a line of over 200 cars parked single-file down the road.

We were one of those cars. Nowhere to go. Nothing to eat. Just sitting there, biding time.

Then, like a miracle, out of nowhere came a Mr. Softee truck. Even though it was morning.

Bam! Next thing you know, a hundred of us had lined up for ice cream.

Willie Sutton supposedly said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.”

Mr. Softee wasn’t tethered to a particular time or place to sell ice cream.

It didn’t matter to him that “ice cream” and “breakfast” don’t exactly go together.

Mr. Softee saw where a lot of kids were, and he went there. Because “kids” and “ice cream” and “trapped parents” always go together.

It’s a lesson for all of us in business.

Sometimes brainstorming your next project or product is not a complex mission.

Sometimes you just have toidentify where the business already is.

Then go after it.