We learned how to tune out distractions. It was a magical thing. The Apple Marketing Philosophy stressed three points.
Walter Isaacson:  Steve Jobs

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Ok, let’s try this again.  Can I be so bold as to say that this point is important?  It is.

You really need to get really good at what you do in this hyper-competitive era, and you’re really only capable of getting good at very few things. 

I have often told the story that I read/heard from David Halberstam.  It was about a time when Walter Mondale, then the Ambassador to Japan, was touring the largest Steel Company in Japan.  In the midst of the tour, Mr. Mondale asked his hosts what they thought about Bethlehem Steel, then the dominant American giant.  After a time of Japanese polite praise, one of the Japanese executives kind of stopped for a moment (they were walking on their tour), and asked:  “Why is Bethlehem Steel buying companies that have nothing to do with steel?”  It was at that moment that Mr. Mondale realized, in Japan, the steel executives loved steel, and in America, the steel executives pursued profits wherever they could find them.  And, ultimately, the steel company that loses that much focus is going to lose the competition to the company that stays focused on the core business.  (By the way, Bethlehem Steel is no longer around).

So…, Farhad Manjoo took off looking for a new Xbox 360.  He parents were in town to watch the “pesky toddler,” so off he went.  It was not a good experience.

Here are a few paragraphs from his article Why Amazon Beats Wal-Mart – A tale from Black Friday.  I’ve bolded a really key line:

My terrible experience on Black Friday confirmed what I’ve long suspected about brick-and-mortar stores: They’re inherently, perhaps unfixably less consumer-friendly than online retailers. It also called into question the grand plans that Wal-Mart and its big-box cohort have for fighting Amazon.
 
Wal-Mart isn’t any less technically capable of providing that level of service. It’s got lots of smart executives and engineers working to make its digital services flawless. The difference is that Amazon’s e-commerce business consists of a single service—shipping stuff to your house from its many warehouses—that it has optimized to amazing ends. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, aims to do lots of different things. It wants to improve its in-store experience so it pairs better with your smartphone. It wants to ship stuff to your house as quickly as possible. It wants to let you order stuff and pick it up in the store without any hassle. If all these things worked, Black Friday would be a breeze: You’d walk in, be guided by your phone to all the stuff on your list, and pay for your purchase with a click of a button.

But doing all that is a logistical nightmare.

Here are two important lessons for all of us to draw:

#1 — Be really good at one thing (or, at least not very many more than one!).  Amazon has just “a single service” to get right.  They have gotten very good at it.  It is easier to get good at one thing than it is to get good at many things.  (You know…  Van Cliburn never played outfield for the Texas Rangers; Josh Hamilton has never played the piano with a world-class orchestra).

#2 — Whatever you get good at, it has to be really, really easy to use/access/purchase for the customer.  Any hassles, and you will lose your customer to the hassle-free option that awaits them.   And there will be one.

Now, Mr. Manjoo doesn’t quite give full credit to Walmart for being a pretty successful enterprise.  But I think he is hinting that, over the long-haul, Walmart is endangered by the success of Amazon – a threat that the CEO of Walmart acknowledges.  (Here is Farhad Manjoo’s article in the latest Fast Company:  Walmart’s Evolution From Big Box Giant To E-Commerce Innovator – Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, embraces social, mobile, and the startup spirit to compete against Amazon. Will it be enough?  It is on my reading list, but I have not yet tackled it).

There are more than enough books and articles and interviews reinforcing these points… we really should have learned this by now.  Focus, and convenience (no hassles), are two very big essentials on the road to success with your current and future customers.