When is the last time you whipped up a batch of Kentucky Fried Chicken at home? Not the time you tried and nearly burned the kitchen down, the time you actually replicated the Colonel’s sacred original recipe – perfectly? What’s that? You never quite pulled it off? How could you? You didn’t have the recipe.
We all know the ingredients of the big food brands – read the label, smarty. But we don’t know the recipe. You can make a shopping list from the back of a Heinz ketchup bottle, but that doesn’t mean you can start cooking it up it in your kitchen. You need the measurements, how to prepare it, how long it cooks, and how to know when it’s done. And that, my friends, is a closely guarded secret.
It’s the same in business. The secret to your sauce is the linchpin of your success. You may share the ingredients with investors, you may even have to share them with customers in order to comply with federal regulations, but you must never ever share the details of how you combine those ingredients to create your product.
This rule applies to every business, even if you are not manufacturing a consumable product. Your “secret sauce” may be a chemical formula or an invention, or a method for doing something faster or better, or even for doing the “impossible.”
Or, perhaps you have a unique approach to servicing customers, or a revolutionary system that creates massive contact lists overnight, or a new way to generate massive publicity. Whatever makes your business totally unique is your “recipe” and must be secured like Fort Knox.
What you want is a customer base that won’t go to “the other guys” because “it’s just not quite the same.” How can you achieve that if “the other guys” get their hands on your not-so-secret recipe? Take a cue from the big brands and keep the good stuff under lock and key.
If you need reassurance that your brilliant idea is actually brilliant, go to the numbers. Don’t share your secret recipe with friends or colleagues in an effort to bolster your courage or legitimize your dream. Revenue is the only proof you need.
