What Your Business Can Learn from the Porn Industry

Hugh McGuire has a great post today at HuffPo entitled "Porn Knows What It's For. Do You?

It's another slant on Guy Kawasaki's business advice to "Make a Mantra". Make a Mantra (instead of a mission statement) sums up what your business does in three words or less. It's your company's reason for being.

So, if your answer to the question is any of
a) Make money
b) Serve shareholders
c) Serve customers

you're not getting the point.

Customers come to you to solve their problems. And they're willing to pay you for the product or service.

So if you can't craft a mantra for your company, it's very likely you're unfocused - just like the music industry who spend all their time on DRM (digital rights management) and attempting to sue their customers, instead of finding a way to better connect us to our music - to eliminate all barriers instead of erecting new ones.

The entire music industry has failed to make a mantra and they're suffering the consequences. The digital age never threatened that industry.

Industry executives who didn't appreciate what their industry was for, did.