Three Ways to Start a Hot Dog Business
October 10, 2014   Dave Lewis

1. Find a busy street corner. Buy a hot dog cart. Cook some hot dogs. Go to that corner with your cart and yell, “Hey! Got hot dogs here!” 2. Find a busy street corner. Find a venture capitalist. Buy a lot on that corner, tear down the bank that’s there, hire a celebrity chef, and build a gleaming “Glamour Dogs” restaurant. (Have a famous architect design it.) 3. Find a busy street corner. Stand there. Hope that someone asks you for a hot dog. When it comes to diversifying their businesses, I think most small business people think they need to choose #2 from the list, and end up doing #3 – they wait for someone to ask them for a new service, and then they figure out how to deliver. Of course, if it’s a service you don’t provide, customers are not likely to think about you when they go looking. And if they are looking, it’s because one of your competitors got to them first – you’re already playing catch-up, and you don’t even have a cart. Virtually every industry is in flux these days, and every business needs to look at how they can adapt to the changing environment. You know, it’s funny, in a lot of industries the cutting edge is just a couple of steps away. You don’t need to revolutionize how you do business, but you do have to adapt, and you are better off being those couple of steps ahead of your competitors. Or you can wait for someone to ask you for a hot dog.

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