"Won't you come into the garden?
I would like my roses to see you."
-- Richard Brinsley Sheridan
In today's world, some businesses are so much bigger, more powerful, and generate dollar sales and profits at unprecedented numbers than those in the past. It might be really easy for us to focus on that aspect of companies such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, General Electric, Ford, GM, and the list goes on. They certainly do bring in an amount of money that we would find very hard to count or relate to.
How big they are and how much money they bring in is a popular view, and some may even find reasons based on that to push against them, make them into the big bad wolf, talk about them negatively, complain and give all sorts of the little guy versus the big bully kinds of comparisons.
Yet there are many ways to look at this in addition to that perspective.
Do you have any idea how much money other people make from the platform that Facebook built? Or Amazon? Or others? It is in the tens, and hundreds of millions of dollars, even into the billions depending on the company and time measurement. So here's this huge company with huge income that creates huge income for others that they are not even part of, except in that they built something that helps others indirectly, or directly to thrive.
Let's just take Facebook as an example. Try to consider how many people sell services on how to be more effective on Facebook. My own company, for example, uses Facebook as part of our services and is part of how we have any income at all. In addition to that, I pay others to help us on Facebook, from platforms that integrate with Facebook, to paying Facebook directly to boost posts, help create traffic to my client's sites, to sell my book, and much more. The companies who use Facebook as their platform to sell their services on how to improve your business through Facebook are so plentiful and I'm sure you see many trying to get your business in that way.
At the same time, Facebook is a social platform for individuals who may have no interest in doing business on Facebook, yet they enjoy being able to communicate, share words, photos, video, create networks, stay in touch with people and so much more. It is valuable, and it is also value-added.
In other words, Facebook isn't just a big company with a billion or so users, it is an opportunity for tens, hundreds of thousands, even millions. And, they are always changing, expanding, trying to be more of service, making things easier and better, creating greater visual interest, more functionality, and so much more.
There is a similar scenario at Amazon, eBay, Walmart, GM, General Electric, Ford, Twitter, LinkedIn. Some are doing things differently, yet each and everyone is not only in business for themselves, but they are in business for others who do business with them that creates the opportunity to do business at all. So, they serve a very wide spectrum of people and businesses just by having created that business in the first place. And, as they have grown, the opportunities that they have created for customers, suppliers, and other businesses has risen exponentially.
Sometimes people lament the big bad wolf has run the mom and pop businesses out of business, but what is more the reality having lived 65 years and seen lots of mom and pop businesses, shopped at them, and seen much larger businesses that also didn't survive, is that people developed different needs and desires. They wanted more, whether it was more selection, more convenience, or more for their money.
Then businesses were created to meet and exceed those needs and desires, and they thrived as a result of that. This, in turn, created lots of opportunities for others to do business with them and partner in business with them. When those needs and desires are no longer being served by that business, they will soon enough be gone. We have all seen that as well, and even very large ones like F.W. Woolworth, Emporium-Capwell, B. Dalton, K-Mart, Kresge, White Front, Builders Emporium, and more.
It is a good thing to see beyond the surface, to find the "hidden" value, and to find ways to appreciate how some businesses have come to serve millions of people very effectively and efficiently. It might help us to appreciate more things, more people, more businesses, more of life in general, along with appreciating change, how things work out, along with how many different ways we can view a thing or situation.
My Roses Think You're Pretty Special. You've Got A Lot Of Great Qualities. They Can See Deeper Than Most. Thanks So Much For The Opportunity!
Spread Some Joy Today--by looking beyond and seeing more perspectives.
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