Performance Trifecta Imperatives

There are few athletes, CEOs or performers that imbue a trifecta of talent. These are extraordinary people because they have a unique combination of stellar skills, performance presence, and business acumen that enables them to evolve from a talent to a superstar. Micheal Jordan, Russell Crowe, Ronald Reagan, Tiger Woods, Mick Jagger, and Taylor Swift, come to mind. This also makes me think of Justify, a magnificent chestnut stallion who won the Triple Crown in 2018. Although he competed against other horses with stronger feet, this intelligent, eager-to-learn horse won the Triple Crown due to a trifecta of track speed (regardless of track conditions) coupled with powerful athleticism and his indifference to where his jockey placed him. Take a minute to watch this impressive horse run the Triple Crown in the video link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZDbn9P6NqU

One of the survival techniques I encourage business owners to carefully develop are the Marketing Trifecta Imperatives. These are the three absolute foundational necessities that must be defined, refined and defended by business leaders. Although these imperatives are paramount to success at every business stage, they are especially true at the starting stage to ensure a fledgling company has a higher chance of survival and crucial at the exiting stage to ensure the enterprise has the market value to demand a higher selling price.

Just like a three-legged stool, all three imperatives must be present or, just like a two-legged stool, a company collapses.

Trifecta Imperative #1: Market Opportunity

Before starting a business, you must determine market demand. This is the first leg, so to speak, of the performance trifecta. You may want to produce and sell purple widgets, but if there is no demand for anything but orange widgets, you are starting a company destined to fail. Lack of market interest is one of the four primary reasons that young companies fail (within the first two stages). In fact, a 2024 study by The Zebra found that 42% of small businesses fail because of a lack of demand in the market for their product.

• Do your research.

• Explore emerging opportunities.

• Ask these trifecta questions.

Is your niche in high demand but saturated with established competitors?

Per Guidant’s Annual Small Business Trend report, the top leading industries for small business have changed very little. They are:

• Retail (16%)

• Food and Restaurants (13%)

• Health & Beauty/Fitness (12%)

• Residential & Commercial Services (9%)

• Construction (8%)

• Business Services (7%)

• Lodging (6%)

Stop. I need to consume a 5-Hour Energy drink because I started to nod off. These are such common market categories plagued with an overabundance of marginal companies with little hope for long-term sustainability surrounded by well-established firms with large market share. Are these really the markets to consider?

What markets have high-growth trends?

Grand View Research projects the global artificial intelligence (AI) market, valued at USD 196.63 billion in 2023 with a projected growth of 36.6% from 2024 to 2030. This is clearly an accelerated growth industry. What other industries have healthy growth rates? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the healthcare industry will make up 45% of all job gains between 2022 and 2032. Other booming industries are cybersecurity and online gambling. Is the market you’re eyeing a market that will be thriving?

Are higher adoption rates by end-users creating market demand?

Oberlo’s recently reported that small businesses in the US reached 34.8 million in 2024, or 99.9% of all companies in America. What are all these company leaders doing that portend market opportunity in the B to B sector? A capsulecrm.com small business stats paper noted 41% of small businesses have developed a mobile app or plan to do so. Is this an opportunity for designing apps for small companies? Eighteen percent of small businesses now accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Is this an opportunity to train entrepreneurs on how to introduce crypto payments into their offerings? Twenty-six percent of small businesses conduct virtual reality training in the manufacturing sector. What opportunities could this change in training methods portend for you? Research and review adoption trends to sniff out markets that need your expertise.

Great opportunity too late?

Square payment systems stated 67% of small businesses accepted mobile payments by 2023. With nearly 70% saturation, would this market opportunity window be closing? With the advent of digital payment transactions, would this market soon go the way of the dinosaur? It’s not a solid opportunity if you’re on the backside of the wave.

Is your niche well-suited for your location or does it matter?

If you have an Internet-based company, you can conduct business almost anywhere.

However, if not, your location may be critical as it pertains to market opportunity. Not to be too blunt, but you wouldn’t want to build a CondomSense.us store in the center of a Mormon community.

What industries generate better net returns?

A 2025 report by The Zebra noted Medtech start-ups return an average net profit of 12.1% making them one of the top 10 most profitable small businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce listed home improvement, cleaning, tutoring, personal training/fitness instructors, and delivery services as the most profitable small business industries. Can you design a power niche within these profitable markets?

What market trends would launch long-term, new market opportunities?

Trends can be a crystal ball of sorts.

Statista reports 40% of current tradespeople will be retiring in the next decade, creating a huge demand for carpenters, plumbers, and construction workers, to name a few. Perhaps a professional trade-based business should be considered over a traditional white-collar enterprise.

According to a SEMRush report, by 2040, almost 95% of all consumer purchases will be made on an eCommerce website. Is your company capable of taking advantage of online purchases? An Accenture Cybersecurity Report notes 43% of cyberattacks target small businesses, yet only 14% are prepared to defend their company. This sounds like an industry ripe with opportunity.

Trifecta Imperative #2: Market Size

You find the right industry, with high-market demand that is well-suited to your skills, background and passion. Next, it is time to focus on the second trifecta imperative: market size.

Going back to our widget example, let’s say you want to manufacture and sell purple widgets. The demand is astronomical but only for two companies. These two companies will buy all the purple widgets you can produce. Unfortunately, they are very small companies with limited growth so the market size for your enterprise is small and limited. Unless you diversify, your company’s growth is stunted, and the future of your business is too.

Is there an exception to this scenario? Yes, you take the risk of a small market niche if the net profits are sizable, and you dominate the niche. However, while doing so, you need to diversify your product line.

It most cases, it would be more prudent to choose a high-demand market with a larger end user/buyer base. Further, you want a market size that is growing. For example, if you were selling COVID treatments in 2021, your market size was resounding. As early as the end of 2023, a Gallop poll revealed that 51% of the US population stated they would not be getting the latest vaccine. Demand for COVID vaccines has diminished significantly and so has the opportunity. It doesn’t matter if a large buyer base still exists if the forecasted growth for the same sector is unfavorable.

Don’t forget to look at industries with great market size potential. Think about the early (skeptical) users of credit and debit cards. Skeptical or not, there were many millions of late adopters who would inevitably leave their checkbooks and cash behind and use cards for most of their transactions. If you were a provider that realized the card transaction industry would be astronomical and were an early service provider for this industry, you made a killing. The potential size of the market was clearly favorable to future growth.

I was just introduced to one of the founders of The Bitcoin Way who is betting on market size potential.

The Bitcoin Way is neither a form of cryptocurrency like bitcoin (BTC) nor are they part of the Bitcoin network. Instead, they protect your digital currency. The founders looked at the slow but inevitable adoption of digital commerce by people who have no experience and little understanding of how it works. As a result, these fledgling cryptocurrency buyers are more vulnerable to losing their investment. The Bitcoin Way is a service that ensures the Bitcoin you buy is properly transferred to your custody, then protected with a form of ‘Fort Knox’ type cybersecurity measures. Their service also includes advising bitcoin owners how to prepare a backup residency in case of a last-minute relocation. You can see that The Bitcoin Way has an eye on what could be a massive market: late, inexperienced bitcoin adopters.

Trifecta Imperative #3: Market Position

What unique niche or market position can you define, refine and defend? Do you have a one-of-a-kind breakthrough service? Have you solved a chronic problem in an industry that competitors failed to solve? Do you have patents on your products? Did you develop a process for making something that expedites delivery while lowering costs? What would enable you to secure a significant market share before your competitors can do so? What do you offer that provides protection against encroachment by your competitors?

I’ve owned many companies. All of them were traditional corporate niches: marketing, CEO training, etc. However, two of my enterprises were very different. Estate Sale IQ was an online estate sale auction company and Creature Concierge is a pet care firm. In both cases, despite the differences in the firms, I was able to define a missing piece in the industry, refine it and get a stronghold on market share because of it. Regarding Estate Sale IQ, I significantly refined the marketing procedures used to promote the auction of better-quality products to the end bidders. Although this would eventually be copied by competitors, I had already secured a loyal following by then making it easy to remain a successful leader in the industry.

The unique position of Creature Concierge is our process-driven service structure complemented with well-trained, mature staff that delivers on-time, reliable, quality service. This is rare in the industry and a business model that is difficult to replicate.

It isn’t enough to have a position in the market that is easy to define. You must also be able to carve out a position that is distinctive, in high demand and tough to breach.

“Much like a parka and snow boots, think of your market position as the protective gear your company wears to prevent encroachment, the insulation around your company’s position stronghold.”

This is something Vani Hari, a ‘food entrepreneur’ understood when she decided to open her business.

In 2011, Vani Hari started a food blog. Some might say her choice of market positions was foolishly impetuous since she had no cuisine school degree; she was not a chef or nutritionist. Prior to launching her new career as a blogger, Vani was a common, overweight American with terrible eating habits. Then, she ended up in the hospital. She vowed to become healthy and stay that way.

There are 600 million blogs globally and millions of bloggers in the food category so what could she possibly provide readers about something she knew nothing about?

Vani chose to leverage what she did know. Everybody eats and statistically, most Americans eat poorly. Food labels are difficult to understand, tasty recipes are worthless if you don’t know what ingredients in them are damaging to your health, and finding the data to incentivize a change in food eating habits was tedious.

Now known as the Food Babe (www.foodbabe.com) Vani realized she could be a rational, relatable voice of commonsense nutrition. She circumvented the expensive diet programs, the nutritionist ‘experts’ who talked over readers’ heads, and the doctors who just wanted to prescribe medication rather than promote healthy habits. She speaks to Americans sick of feeling sick. Her unique prescription: education in bite-sized components easy for people to digest. She applies an investigative approach to help people to understand what toxins are in common foods, how some foods are unhealthy due to how they are grown; or what ingredients make a dish healthy or not. Vani has built a Food Babe Army that works collectively to voice their views (and use their pocketbooks) to get food makers’ attention. She found a huge market opportunity with a massive market size to grow a great business, despite the bastion of bloggers in her market sector.

In summation:

Just because you are passionate about a product or service, doesn’t mean there is a definitive opportunity in the market to pursue it. Work with a trusted business coach, a market researcher, and a brand specialist if necessary to explore your market opportunities. Review white papers in your preferred industries and visit with other CEOs in similar industries. Query the service providers that support your market interests and ask them what they are seeing, learning and predicting for that specific market. If you want a brick-and-mortar store, go mystery shop potential competitors. One of the most brilliant marketing campaigns I worked on for a national eyewear company was developed because of what we discovered from mystery shopping their competitors.

A company cannot survive (much less build and grow) without the Performance Trifecta Imperative legs beneath it. These are the essential components that transform a fledgling start-up into thoroughbred-like business that wins the entrepreneurial race every time.