There’s a second reason Gus is consistently successful – he never places all his eggs in one basket.
Even though Fring oversees a huge meth operation extending to Europe, he’s never only in the meth game. Every character in the show who places their fortune squarely in drugs – including Walter White – sees their empire crumble at some point.
But Fring takes an alternative approach. His assets are strewn across businesses, both legitimate and illegal. A fried chicken franchise and a commercial laundry are solid businesses, and the show strains to portray Fring as successful.
Diversification is the key to any good investment and business strategy.
Walter White’s success is built on the premise he can create consistently high-quality meth. His product is incredibly pure, giving meth addicts a better high – naturally, this creates significant demand.
But creating good meth isn’t good enough. White’s product carries a signature blue colour due to the chemicals used in the cooking process. He creates a brand – everyone knows what Heisenberg meth is due to both the quality and the appearance. It’s a solid business strategy.
But White goes further. In an episode during which he and partner-in-crime Jesse Pinkman talk about getting their meth on the streets, he makes an order to raise the price.
“Corner the market, then raise the price,” White says. “Simple economics.”
Simple economics, indeed. And it leads to both Jesse and White making a lot of money.
When White’s first batches of meth start hitting the streets, Pinkman brings his employees together and gives them a pep rally. Start selling more meth, he says. And don’t back down.
He also makes a key selling point to his employees, who are more like franchisees: keep selling as much as you want – the inventory will keep coming.
Supply and demand is simple economics, but plenty of businesses struggle with the idea of maintaining growth. It’s important during the early stages of a business to ensure that growth is sustainable – and keeping inventory flowing freely will ensure you don’t fall behind.
In the fifth season of the show, White and Pinkman go into business after controlling the market for themselves. But there’s one problem. After making an incredible amount of money from just one cooking session, White is surprised by the amount of money that must be spent on overheads.
Not only does he have to pay Saul Goodman for legal protection, but there’s also plenty of money set aside for dealers who “know too much”. All up, a huge amount of the money made from cooking meth goes to paying for the business itself.
While White is upset about the prospect of paying others, there’s a significant lesson here. You want to pay top dollar for services to help your business succeed. Although you might be frustrated about having to pay large salaries for top employees, or legal services to keep your business in line with the law, it’s worth the payout – ignoring these payments would be devastating.
A recurring theme in the show is that of perfection. No other cook can reach the purity level White can achieve when cooking meth. Even the next best cook, White’s partner Jesse Pinkman, is still a few percentage points short of hitting White’s mark of nearly 100%.
In fact, that purity level is one of the ways White has managed to survive over the course of five seasons – by convincing others he’s the only one able to cook meth at such a high quality.
That greed for perfection has kept his business partners from turning on him during several points in the show.
Perfection is a common trait among entrepreneurs. Any number of companies will say they don’t release a product until it is “perfect”.
Breaking Bad underlines a key point for businesses – even close to perfect isn’t good enough.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
