Maybe you can help me?
All day long, I’ve been trying to come up with a sticky way to think about the difference between:
1. A business built on predictable income, where 60% or more of your desired income each month is covered with near certainty on the first of the month, by things like continuity and subscription offers, retainers, regular work with long-term clients, or payments on payment plans, and
2. A business completely lacking predictable income, where close to 0% of your monthly income is certain in advance, and each month is a series of scores or cash grabs, whether that’s launches, promos, or one-off work with new clients.
I’ve been thinking and thinking, pondering and pondering, summer autumn winter spring.
How to present this distinction in a more succinct, immediately understandable way?
My best idea so far is an analogy to two famous makes of car.
I thought to call the first type of business, the business built on predictable income, a “Rolls-Royce business.” That’s coming the famous David Ogilvy headline:
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”
In other words, even at high speed income, there’s not a lot of noise, stress, or smoke in a Rolls-Royce business. It’s very efficient, comfortable, and even conservative. It’s likely to stick around for a long time, just like Rolls-Royce the company, which has been in business for 120+ years.
The other kind of business, completely lacking in predictable income, I though to call a “DeLorean business.”
DeLorean, you might or might not know. was an 80s sports car, which was only produced for two years. Today it’s only really known because it was used in the “Back to the Future” movies.
DeLorean was flashy with its gull-wing doors and low profile. It was also unreliable, uncomfortable, and ultimately led the company to bankruptcy. As Car and Driver magazine put it:
“Hopping, darting, and corkscrewing motions are not the stuff of confidence.”
I don’t know though.
What do you think of this analogy?
Does it carry the emotional impact I want it to have, if I’m trying to promote the stable and comfortable Rolls-Royce biz at the expense of the flashy and unstable DeLorean biz? Or are the gull-wing doors and the Back to the Future association too positive, and does a DeLorean biz sound too cool to give up?
Please hit reply and let me know what you think. Or let me know if you have a better sticky way to present the difference between a “predictable income biz” and an “uncertain cash grab biz.”
Thanks in advance.