Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

The announcement by Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS) that they're going to offer a release of their popular game "Battlefield Heroes" as an online version only, which can be downloaded to a wide variety of computers, is a great study in how to grow your business.

We'll look at this from the perspective that you have an existing customer base, and sales of your product or service have leveled out. The other assumption is your product or service is geared toward early adopters. That usually means people that like to tinker with stuff, discover, compete or go deep with something.

If your business has that as part of its makeup, and sales are slowing down, here's something to look at to get them moving again.

What you're doing here is looking at bringing what you do, from a core base to the general population. That requires different thinking and strategy.

As the developers of the new game for Electronic Arts says, you've got to get rid of all the barriers to entry. The point is with our business competitors we want as many barriers to entry as we can get. But when it comes to our customers and wanting to build out our sales, the opposite is true. There we want any barrier we can think of removed, so the regular consumer can participate without being overwhelmed.

To remove barriers to entry means to simplify. It doesn't matter what type of product or service you offer, think in terms of making it easier to use. Brainstorm on what there is about it that could be holding back ordinary people from using it. What appeals to early adopters that wouldn't to a mass audience?

Think in terms of the learning curve here. How much time does it take to properly use your offering for the average person? People have to have early wins in this department if you want to generate word of mouth here. In other words, they have to be able to use it easily and quickly, without having to know everything about it.

Move outside of games alone, and think of any piece of equipment that could be used on a regular basis. The list is almost endless on what can be done to make things easier for people.

I've seen new lawnmowers that were so difficult to use that it discourages the market from embracing them. Recently I watched an adult try to put back together a toy that was meant for a very young child, and they weren't able to do it. It took away from their experience.

I guess you can see what the key word for doing this is, and it's to simplify. Many times one of the reasons our sales have slown down is because the early adopter market has matured, and there aren't any more to reach out to. If that's the case, it could definitely be time to think in terms of simplifying your product offering, and putting out a new line that caters to the more general population.

This doesn't mean we have to alienate our former customers, just put out something that appeals to a wider customers base, while keeping the existing one happy.