Happy 4th of July week! 🎆 🇺🇸 

Hopefully you are celebrating with a little time off during what is historically a very slow business week.

Today’s Launch Key 🚀 subject is a focus on Easy Button business basics.

Greatness requires a a relentless execution of everyday tasks. Too many wantrepreneurs are dreaming of the next big thing when in fact, doing the little things can be the larger part of success.

Comment below and let me know if we’re on the right track.

Table of Contents

• Pull to Eject

• Modern Tools

• Old School Wisdom

• Free Knowledge

• Recommendations

• Visual Crapshoot

Pull to Eject

In a world hyperventilating about innovation and AI disruption, aspiring entrepreneurs often stay on the sidelines because they haven’t dreamed up a better mousetrap.

Sure - you need a good idea. But the groundbreakers are outliers.

The vast majority of business success comes from doing the easy stuff.

• Showing up

• Listening to customers

• Delivering quality product

• Fixing mistakes

• Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Think about the most successful business people you admire. What sets them apart isn't necessarily a single moment of brilliance, but a consistent dedication to mastering the basics.

At its core, greatness stems from a relentless commitment to excellence in everyday tasks.

PNC Bank gets it.

Or at least their agency does. Their tagline “Brilliantly Boring since 1865” and the verbiage about their “pragmatic, calculated kind of boring” is spot on.

Greatness often finds its foundation of solid, simple actions.

One of my pet peeves is the lack of customer service.

It’s an easy way to differentiate a business.

But it’s been cost-minimized in so many businesses that it’s literally nonexistent.

We’re asked to bag our own groceries, order our own food and in many cases solve our own tech problems. And then we’re supposed to fill out a customer survey about our experience?

Hint: if I’m doing the work – there should be a discount – not a tip.

Self service is not customer service.

Easy button basics apply to almost any type of business.

For years I’ve said, that if a local HVAC company or electrician or plumber just made their differentiator to arrive 10 minutes early. Every appointment.

They would print money and own their market.

Any service business can iterate towards greatness with a few boring basic principles.

1. Active Listening: Truly listening to your customers can uncover invaluable insights that can lead to product differentiation, customer satisfaction, repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.

2. Timely Follow-Up: Customer Service 101 – promptly following up with a customer inquiry demonstrates reliability and builds trust. The opposite is exponentially more damaging.

3. Consistent Quality: It goes without saying that ensuring every deliverable meets high standards. Truly doing it can set you apart from competitors.

4. Effective Time Management: Prioritizing tasks and managing your time efficiently allows you to accomplish more without sacrificing quality. Internal chaos is rarely hidden from customers.

5. Continuous Learning: The willingness to continually learn and adapt is crucial. Post project reviews help fine tune your process. Seek out current information, software and industry trends that can keep your product or service evolving.

Still stumped for the right entrepreneurial idea?

It doesn’t require an earth-shattering new concept. Not everyone can invent reusable rockets.

Hubspot delivers a solid list of small business ideas here. Many of them are not even digital.

Think about how you could apply easy button consistency to any of these common sense businesses.

Better yet, find an established one for sale.

Could you make one of these ideas great? Plenty of other entrepreneurs have.

There’s a pretty low bar for the basics.

Push the Easy Button and show up 10 minutes early.

Now go launch something 🚀 

Modern Tools

I’ve used many different email platforms over the past 20+ years, including both enterprise and individual solutions. I never really loved any of them, until Beehiiv 🐝.

If your new business will send newsletters, I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

• They’ve made it drag-and-drop easy and free to start

• They have built-in design tools - and just acquired AI-based website builder Typeform for even more future customization

• They have a very good recommendation engine for other newsletters

• Their Advertiser network is robust and growing

Each week I get suggestions of companies who want to boost or sponsor my newsletter. I simply choose the ones I think will make the most sense to my audience.

Everything is automated: scheduling, distribution, payments, sponsorships, recommendation engine - all integrated with easy-to-use tools.

Ready to get started?

Click on the link below to save 20% off your first 3 months of a paid plan after a complimentary 30-day trial.

Old School Wisdom

Jim Collins classic book, and the rigorous research that went into it, showed a few companies who outperformed the Fortune 500 for more than a decade.

The good-to-great companies understood that doing what you are good at will only make you good; focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.

Collins’ Hedgehog and Flywheel concepts detailed sustained effort on the boring consistency of world beating corporations.

Free Knowledge

Scott Galloway recently riffed on a Jon Evans UnCensored CMO pod about getting the easy stuff right.

Just do the basic stuff.

Be on time. Dress well. Have manners. Follow up.

And this gem: Listen and don’t speak for your first 6 months on a new job! 💥 

Recommendations

🌟 Creator Spotlight : Interviews and Creator Economy success stories every Friday.

📰 Marketing Memos : Proven Marketing Tips for Founders in your Inbox

🧠 MGMT Playbook : Practical management insights straight to your inbox every Wednesday.

🛠️ Today in Digital Marketing : Every weekday at 5pm ET, get a complete news brief covering the day's events in digital marketing, social media, e-commerce, CRO, SEO, and online advertising.

💪 Dealroom : Learn directly from billionaire entrepreneurs on how to grow a business.

Visual Crapshoot