Why Nachos Aren’t on the Menu

Sean used to work at a brewery, waiting tables and bartending. It's a sizable regional brewery located in a town with a population of about 10,000 and not especially easy to get to, so he used to see a lot of the same people.

Plenty of those regulars were lovely, enthusiastic, well-mannered people. A few were not.

One not-so-great regular often came in and ordered nachos. The problem was that nachos weren't on the menu.

“Of course, you can make me nachos," he'd insist, “you have chips, cheese, and salsa. What's so hard about that?"

It seems simple enough—just make the man what he wants, maybe even charge him a little extra for the hassle. But accommodating that "off menu" order brings with it a slew of knock-on effects.

What does a dude ordering nachos that aren’t on the menu have to do with leading a business or working independently?

Lots, actually.

As precarious workers in an ever-changing market, we’re continuously presented with “opportunities” to expand what we offer or “pivot.” It can seem like the next big thing is the key to stability or at least short-term security.

So the question at hand is:

How do you decide to expand your product or service offerings?

It's a question and I have been wrestling with at YellowHouse.Media this year. Over the last few months, we've fielded a bunch of questions about adding video production to our podcast services. We’ve lost out on some new business because we didn’t do video. And we’re definitely leaving money on the table with some of our existing clients.

However, those aren’t reasons to add video to our menu. Neither is the fact that we both enjoy watching videos online or that I even enjoy the occasional video production experiment myself. Just because someone is willing to pay for video production doesn't mean we should offer it.

We can't build a sustainable business by chasing every opportunity.

A sustainable business is strategically constrained. Its leaders know what the business is and, more importantly, what it's not.

We started our production agency to make standout podcasts. It’s not that we didn’t know video was a hot way to produce content. It’s that we know and care about podcasting. And honestly, if you asked me to choose between the death of YouTube and the death of podcasting, I'd take the death of YouTube every single time.

Even before YellowHouse.Media was born, we mapped out the systems, team, financials, goals, value proposition, etc., that would make up the business world we want to build for ourselves. So in order for us to consider adding video production, we have to remap that world.

What is YellowHouse.Media if it expands its scope to include video production?

And is that the world we want to live and work in?

While the stakes of giving in to an off-menu request for nachos might be smaller, there are stakes nonetheless. When one server agrees to throw some chips and cheese on a plate and put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes, they're—in a small way—altering the world of that pub.

That server changes the expectations of the patron who asked for nachos in a way that impacts other servers who will take his order in the future. The server disrupts the workflow and efficiency of the kitchen staff. And in a very small way, the server undermines the cohesiveness of the menu. It's not the server's responsibility to think of all those consequences in the moment, of course, but it is my responsibility as a business owner.

So here's how we've been thinking through the idea of expanding into video production.

Brand and Value Proposition

At the highest level, we need to consider whether video production fits into the brand and value proposition we've built the business around. It does not. From our perspective (which is the perspective that matters most), adding video production fundamentally alters the nature of the business we've built to this point.

So we must begin by asking ourselves:

What if our brand and value proposition could accommodate video production?

What would that brand be? And how would we communicate that value proposition?

Notice that these questions ask for imagination—not a “right answer.” To answer these questions, we can get creative and think about the business we might build instead of the business we have built (or are definitely going to build).

To this point, the brand and value proposition have been oriented around producing standout podcasts that help small business owners achieve their goals. But I had already started to think about what our business would become if our brand and value proposition centered on creating remarkable media instead.

More specifically, what would our agency look like if we helped small business owners and leaders build remarkable media ecosystems?

Now that’s an interesting question.

Personal Priorities

From the jump, we wanted to build a business that we could slowly distance ourselves from. We had ideas about how the team could grow, how we could delegate ownership over projects, and what that would mean for our time commitment. Shifting to building remarkable media ecosystems disrupts that, at least in the near term.

I'd need to spend significantly more time on the day-to-day work of production. Sean would need to develop new procedures. And we'd need to relearn what clients want from us and our team.

Ultimately, we want a company we advise and manage that also leaves a large portion of the workweek for other endeavors. And we want a company that compensates us and our team members well.

So when it comes to our personal priorities, we need to ask ourselves:

How might we structure a business that creates remarkable media ecosystems to align with our values regarding time and compensation?

Adding video (and other forms of remarkable media) changes the calculus on time and compensation. Producing video doesn't just take additional time—it also introduces potential human snags. People already have thoughts about what they sound like (or should sound like), but they have even more thoughts about what they look like (or should look like). That's going to impact both our time capacity and our emotional bandwidth.

Plus, to deliver on our value proposition of building a remarkable media ecosystem, we'd need to carefully consider our strategic approach to video and how that would influence the production process itself. Again, this goes beyond the mere execution of the task—and adds time to our work and value to the final product.

Further, once we consider how this business might be structured to align with our personal priorities, we must also consider the work involved in making that shift and whether that's something we want to or are willing to do.

Business Model

Our business model to this point has been based on a simple productized service model. Every podcast we produce is different, of course, but the underlying service is relatively consistent across the board. This business model supports our goal of being able to slowly step away from the day-to-day operations of the company over time. The fewer customizations or changes to procedures we make, the easier it is for us to hand off execution to others while maintaining high standards.

This is probably the business component that would have to change most if we add video production and move toward creating remarkable media ecosystems. A remarkable media ecosystem can't be standardized. We can likely develop a sort of strategic buffet that would offer some efficiency. But at the end of the day, every media ecosystem we create would be different.

Now we need to ask ourselves:

What would need to change about our pricing, service offerings, clientele, and financials to support building remarkable media ecosystems?

Prices have to go up, obviously. We might need to scope and price each project individually. Further, we might need to break our initial service into two parts: a strategic package (i.e., what should your media ecosystem include?) to identify the scope of our services for each client and then a production package based on that strategy. Currently, we can offer both strategy and execution as part of the same package since the strategy determines content rather than the scope of services.

Since prices would go up, our clientele would probably change too. Our financials would shift—at least initially—because our labor would be allocated differently. It would likely take some time to get the pricing right, so we might have to weather some ups and downs in the process.

And if our business model changes, what does that mean for what the business is at the most fundamental level?

That question brings us right…

Back to the Top

We started with the brand and value proposition. But working through these other layers of the business, it's starting to become clear that building remarkable media ecosystems fundamentally changes the nature of the business. In other words, given the other questions we've asked about this potential shift and the scenarios we've imagined, we have to go back to the brand and value proposition.

While it might seem like offering video production on top of podcast production is just an additional service, I see it differently. Our podcast production agency would have to become a marketing agency, and that is a big change.

Do we want to build a marketing agency? Would it align with our values and personal priorities? How would building a marketing agency impact our business model?

And the questions just keep coming.

What would need to be true for us to want to live and work in the world where we run a marketing agency rather than a podcast production agency? What would need to be true for us to be proud of the media ecosystems we help others build?

It's not enough to ask ourselves whether we can do video—we can. It's not even enough to ask whether we want to do video—the jury is still out. To make a decision like this, we have to consider the whole world of the business and whether building that world is a project we want to take on.1

In the end, deciding to expand your product or service offerings isn't a matter of whether you should or shouldn't. Instead, it's a matter of asking what happens if you expand your menu. It's a creative exercise that asks you to imagine a new world and fully consider the implications of whatever decision you make.

This is the nature of strategic planning—it's cyclical rather than linear.

One new idea, one shift in perception, one procedural change can lead to a slew of downstream effects. Just like putting nachos on the menu.

Tara McMullin

Tara McMullin is a writer, podcaster, and critic who studies emerging forms of work and identity in the 21st-century economy. Bringing a rigorous critique of conventional wisdom to topics like success and productivity, she melds conceptual curiosity with practical application. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, Quartz, and The Muse.

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