Icebergs are hard to copy

88% of an iceberg is invisible

Ok, I cheated. This article really has very little to do with Icebergs, but a lot to do with copying. I’ll explain in a moment, but firstly I do need to explain the iceberg reference.

As you almost certainly know, most of an iceberg’s mass is under water. Actually, only 1/9^th of an iceberg is visible above water, the other 8/9ths are hidden (and they actually perform a critical role in holding up the visible peak). This has been a great analogy for many years, and the phrase “tip of the iceberg” is commonly used.

However, the rest of this article is about copying (when not to do it and when to do it!)

Copying what you can see is dangerous

Many businesses seem to think it’s easy to copy what someone else is doing. At a superficial level, this is true – you simply do what you see the competition is doing.

However, it can also be very dangerous. If your competitor starts giving away product for free, should you do the same? Unless you have a really good understanding of why they’re doing it, I wouldn’t advise it (especially if they don’t have a good understanding of why they’re doing it themselves!). And unfortunately, gaining that understanding can be difficult. Coming back to the icebergs, this is the 8/9ths which is invisible.

Deep structure

In the software world, we use the terms “shallow structure” and “deep structure” to distinguish between simple visible ideas and the complex underlying ideas. In business terms, “shallow structure” can be simple things like the staff wearing red T-shirts. This is easy to copy (just go and buy a load of red T-shirts). The “deep structure” is all of the cultural and branding issues which got them to where they are. This may have taken a business many years to get right, and to think it can be copied in days and work in the same way is naive.

No need for secrecy

I’ve always been happy to talk to our competition (on occasion I’ve even invited them to our office to see how we do things, which I think surprised them!). The reason we can do this is that I know the amount of work required to copy what we’re doing. And even if someone did exactly that (which could take years) it wouldn’t be authentic.

As another example, you could easily copy our format for answering the telephone. However, unless you’ve got the right calibre of staff it won’t help greatly. And getting good staff is a skill in its own right and takes a great deal of time and effort.

Online marketing

Many businesses have failed at online marketing for exactly this reason. They see their competition doing well and try to do the same thing (pay for a pile of ads on Google). But without a good understanding of click-through rates, A/B testing, landing pages, conversion strategies, customer acquisition costs, search engine optimisation etc, they’re just going to lose a lot of money fast. And I’ve seen quite a few of them do it.

When to copy something?

I’m not against copying – I’ll shamelessly apply any good idea from anywhere as long as I’m not breaking the law. However, we then have to convert it into something which works for us (things rarely just slot in without adjustment, and some things which are great ideas will never work for us).

No-one has a monopoly on good ideas, and I’m also delighted when someone takes something we’re doing and makes use of it (imitation is the most sincere form of flattery).

Iceberg assembly kit anyone?

So rather than copying an iceberg, it’s actually much quicker to build your own (still takes a while though!). And if your iceberg needs any software, we’ve got a really cool iceberg assembly kit (sadly, the pun was intended).

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