Legos and Small Business

Here’s an interesting story that everyone who is “too busy” will love.

Legos.

Right… you know what they are?

Well… just in case…

Lego (Danish pronunciation: [lɑjˀɡ̊oːˀ]; stylized LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company’s flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct objects; vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

Anyway.

Legos are so popular.

I guess because of all the years of being a cultural icon for kids, movies, theme-parks, Starwars Legos (those helped) and the gazzilions of dinero they put into the brand in the last lord knows how many years.

Well… they recently pulled back their marketing.

Why? Because demand was out-pacing supply.

Manufacturing could not keep up.

I’m sure there were other reasons.

But Lego is sticking to their story.

It begs the question.

Does it ever make sense to “limit your supply?”

To turn the sign from “Open” to “Be back in 20 Minutes” and just hope no one new comes in or calls, or emails or demands anything from you? Or… gasp… wants to buy something?

I guess there are times when you need to wrap things up before you take on anything else.

BUT… this thinking…. A small biz… thinking like Lego… for the most part… is a bad idea.

Let’s not get too deep into this rabbit hole.

The main issue is… In the world of small business, there are so many things that can go wrong and get out of whack that you can’t control… it makes no sense to negatively impact (most of the time) what you can control… and that is your marketing efforts and what you’re doing to spread the word.

You really have to be careful about being “too busy” to keep the marketing wheel going.

I bet Lego will have plenty to go around once Christmas gets here.

What do you think?

Or… maybe … they’ll have that one “toy” that everyone has to fight over this year?

Remember… “Tickle Me Elmo?”  I love Elmo too — but come on?

I hope you rock out the last quarter of the year.