Diane GardnerFounder, Adept Business Solutions · Profit First Professional

One Step Back Technique for Fostering Innovation During Recession

14 Apr 2020 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:33

In this brief on‑camera monologue, the speaker walks to an empty office and shares a practical framework called the “one step back” technique, aimed at small‑business owners facing recession‑era challenges. The method involves breaking a core service into its micro‑steps and asking what happens just before each step, then turning those preceding actions into new, adjacent offerings. Using a restaurant as a running example, the speaker shows how the step of delivering food can lead to takeout/delivery services, how the step of cooking can become recipe‑teaching classes, and how the step of procuring ingredients can evolve into a supply or butchery business. The talk concludes with a prompt to visit mikemotorbike.com for more tips and a motivational call for small businesses to “stand up, step forward, kick ass.”

Chapters

Walking to work right now to an empty office. It's just me. We've gone remote, but I'm going in so I can do some writing, prepare some videos. But one thing I wanted to share was a concept of one step back. You know, the challenge we're gonna have in this market is how to differentiate ourselves. And some businesses— actually, there's one right over there, a restaurant— that restaurant is forced closed down. They can do takeout only. That is, that's really tough on business and it can put them and other restaurants out. But here's a strategy to differentiate yourself. If you're a restaurant, for example, or you have a gathering point, ask yourself in microsteps what happens right before the end delivery. So right before I put the food on the table for customers, what happens? Well, the food's carried to the customer. Alright, write that down. Carried to the customer. So that's a takeout or delivery offering potentially. What happens right before? Well, we prepare the food. Okay, what if you teach lessons on how to prepare the recipes your restaurant's famous for? Well, what happens before that? Well, the food is procured, you have to get the raw materials, the products. Well, why not become a supplier of that? If you can get good meats, you can become a temporary butcher, stuff like that. So do the one step back technique. There's my building over there, the gray space. Do the one step back technique. Meaning go in micro steps back in your process, and now that can become potentially a new offering temporarily or permanently. For more tips like this, go to mikemotorbike.com. And if you're a small business, remember this: it's time to stand up, step forward, kick ass.