The Spin Sucks Question: How Do Best Practices Fit Into Your Business?

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In the minds of coffee experts, there is a right and a wrong bean to roast,” writes Jay Acunzo in his new book, Break the Wheel. He’s telling the story of how Death Wish Coffee got its start, and Mike, the almost-failed-coffee shop owner (and future creator of the wildly successful brand) had decided that he had been roasting the wrong bean. He should be using Arabica beans. Not Robusta. That’s the best practice in coffee circles. Except, that’s not what Mike wanted. He didn’t want to be another same-as coffee maker. It took a lot of time and effort (and bean roasting) to realize he aspired to something else (the strongest cup of coffee!). Voicing that aspiration out loud, Jay explains, is what unhooked Mike from “the endless cycle that we face whenever we make decisions at work.” Suffice to say, by going against the best practices in his industry, Mike was able to create a unique product and brand. We’ve been talking about best practices with Jay a lot recently.

In fact, he joined us for the first-ever Spin Sucks Community AMA last week to answer questions on just that. The idea? Best practices aren’t bad, per se. They are meant to be possible starting points. But they should be questioned, challenged, and, when necessary, put aside in favor of what makes sense for you, your brand, and what you’re trying to accomplish. Best Practices Are the Best, Right? Still, they are Timeshare Owners Email List best practices… People WAY smarter than me (than I?) have tried and tested and found them worthy. So why should we question them? Good question, right? Admittedly, we did spend an hour in the Spin Sucks Community chatting with Jay about the hows and whys of best practices and why we shouldn’t follow them blindly, but that’s kind of the point. There’s no one answer. So, we wanted to hear your thoughts. Hence, this week’s Spin Sucks Question: How do best practices fit into your business? What are some examples of best practices you’ve upheld? What about others you’ve had to dismiss and rebuild on based on your goals? You Have to Start Somewhere Kamyar Shah feels best practices actually stifle creativity and success: The concept of best practices is rather a misguided notion of uniformity and groupthink that at best stifle effectiveness and efficiency and at worst create a tremendous burden on organizational success. I have made a habit to use best practices ONLY as a starting point.



For instance; in marketing strategy planning I help my clients to start with a comprehensive overview of all platforms and channels, yet quickly help them discard those that are not suited for their product or services. On the other hand, some basic digital marketing best practices, such as standard on-page optimizations, are simply a must. In HR projects, I encourage my clients to explore non-traditional methodology in the recruiting and selection process instead of the best practices that are currently standards for many organizations. The bottom line is that the concept of best practices is generally either misunderstood or wrongly implemented. It was never meant to be a uniform SOP for every organization; only a set of basics to serve as a starting point. Success comes from the adaption of those best practices to the individual business based on its leadership style and product/service selections. Best Practices: Forms! Forms! Forms work! We should use forms, right? According to Marc Peterson, yes: We followed the general “build an email list for our content site” and it’s been paying off well.