Never follow the others.
Years ago, I read in an “in-flight” magazine an article about one of SONY's co-founders, a man named Masura Ibuka. Mr. Ibuka was a remarkable man and it was his drive and foresight that helped make SONY what it is today. However, there was one thing he said that caught my attention. Mr. Ibuka said, “You never succeed in technology, business or anything by following the others.” And then it struck me – of course, that was it. That was how SONY got to be great – they solved their own problems, they came up with their own ideas.

The SONY name now stands for quality and innovation.
Today, SONY Corporation is one of the most respected businesses in the world. The SONY name stands for quality, coupled with unique and innovative solutions. In seems that they have revolutionized most of the areas in which they chose to compete. All of their products are in a class by themselves.

It’s best to solve your own problems.
Like Mr. Ibuka, I firmly believe that it is always best to solve your own business problems. In fact, I have never allowed my employees to visit another company to see how they are handling a particular solution. I know that if I let my employees look to other companies for solutions and ideas, that whatever solution they decide upon will be mediocre at best.

Losing in two ways.
In fact, if I would permit my employees to get their solutions elsewhere, we would lose in two ways:

1. First, the likelihood of coming up with an original idea would be greatly diminished. In all probability, we would have a mediocre solution.
2. Second, and more importantly, they would be deprived of an exercise in creative problem solving. I read long ago (and don’t remember from where) that it is much better to “teach someone how to fish” than “to give them a fish.” The gist of this wise old saying is that if you “give them a fish” they must always wait for you to get the next fish. However, if you “teach someone how to fish” they are then able to catch their own fish, become independent, and much more valuable. Getting your solutions from outside your company is the same as “someone giving you a fish.”

Why I rarely attend industry events.
Because of my desire to be original, I rarely attend industry events. In fact, since I’ve been in the domain registration business I’ve only attended one event, and I only did this because I was one of the keynote speakers. I’m not talking here about ICANN events, where registrars meet to set policy for the industry – we’re always represented at these events. Instead, I’m talking about conventions or “how to do this or that” type of events.

Whenever I see an industry event being promoted I think back to a time when I owned Parsons Technology, and Mark (one my Vice Presidents) and I went to a software symposium that dealt with marketing. The first seminar we sat in on dealt with selling software using outbound telemarketing.

We didn’t know you couldn’t make money selling a $19 product over the phone!
At that time, Parsons Technology had perhaps the largest outbound telemarketing departments in the software industry. It was staffed with at least 200 employees. One of our hottest products was our Personal Tax Edge software, and we used outbound telemarketing as one of the ways to sell it. We sold it for $19 to new customers and $12 to repeat customers – and we made a “fist full of cash” selling the program that way. I think we were doing this successfully because we weren’t aware that the rest of the industry thought “it could not be done.”

The expert said that what we were doing was not possible.
The first speaker at the seminar was a guy on the panel who was presented as “the telemarketing expert.” After a brief introduction, he talked about the trials and tribulations of telephone marketing. Then he said that it was not possible to make money selling over the phone, unless your software product sold for at least $300.

We came back with good ideas, but they came from – the golf course!
Upon hearing the expert’s comments, Mark and I looked at each other — knowing we were making plenty money selling a $19 product over the phone— smiled and gave each other a small “high five.” We then left the conference and instead, played golf. On the golf course that day, we came up with a few really good ideas that we immediately put to work when we got back to the company. I believe, had we stayed at the seminar, we would have went home with nothing.

Big dividends.
I can tell you that requiring my employees to step up and solve our problems has paid big dividends for me in both of my businesses. It’s helped keep our costs down, provided us valuable information, and enabled us to sell and succeed in areas where we were told it just wasn’t possible.

Ingenious solutions.
Having to solve their own problems, the talented employees I’ve been fortunate to work with, have literally been ingenious with their solutions. Most of this took place because they were not exposed to an “expert” telling them “this can’t be done” or “you can’t do it that way.” Many times we achieved something no one else did, simply because we were not aware of the fact “that it couldn’t be done.”

The moment someone says “they can’t,” they are correct.
One of the favorite things I like to tell my employees when I present them with a problem to solve is that the moment you say you cannot do something – you are correct. Thus, I force them to find not only a solution, but also a good and ideally simple solution. I never accept “no” as an answer. And more importantly, I never have seen a situation where my employees, when pressed, did not return with a good or outstanding solution. In fact, often their solutions have been ingenious, with them saying how glad and proud they were that they pressed on.

How Go Daddy became a registrar.
When Barb (my Executive Vice President) and I decided that GoDaddy.com would become a domain registrar, we did so because we saw that prices in the domain market were sky-high and that the service didn’t seem very good. We also thought that if we could bring low prices to this market — along with good service — we would be successful. So on our own, without calling or taking to anyone, or getting this one’s opinion, or that one’s thoughts, we went ahead and committed the resources to become a registrar. The process took us about one year, and a million dollars.

The outside “experts” told us we might have made a bad decision.
After we made the decision to become a registrar and were in the process of doing the work in order to pull it off, quite often we were told (always by someone outside the firm) that we should be careful about what we were doing. We were told all the negative stuff like, “if that would work – how come someone is not doing it?” Or, “you’ll never sell enough to justify those prices.” Or better yet, “there’s going to be a lot of problems you’ll have that you don’t know about.” Of course the last statement was true, but when the problems surfaced we solved them.

It’s not always bad if others think you are crazy!
Today, GoDaddy.com is the world's largest domain name registrar. I shudder to think what it would be like today if Barb and I had not made the decision to become a domain name registrar. I’ve found that sometimes a good sign that you’re on the right track, is that what you’re doing causes others to question your good sense. At least it’s been that way for me.

Brilliant technical solutions.
On the technical side, the solutions my employees have come up with have been brilliant. One that comes to mind was at Parsons Technology and involved something as mundane as compression of text for our legal software.

Making data stored on eight diskettes fit on just one.
Our legal software, back then, came with 30 or so different legal agreements, that differed in one way or another for each of our 50 states. Using the text compression available back then, our programmers needed eight diskettes to accommodate all of the agreements. I challenged them to do better and am proud to tell you that they eventually discovered a unique way to compress text for that application by an unbelievable 96%! We were able to ship the product on one diskette – instead of the original eight. The savings for us — and the added convenience for our customers — was huge!

Everything becomes possible when you and your employees “learn how to fish!”
I could go on and on here, but I think by now you get the point. Take the time to solve your own problems. Don’t let others do it for you. If you want your employees to come up with brilliant solutions, challenge them to solve your problems and don’t let them visit or copy others for their solutions. As the old saying goes, if you want to become unbeatable, don’t let others “give you fish.” Instead, make it your goal that you and your employees will “learn how to fish ” — and catch your own.