Why my chicken has a better business model than I do

Sitting at my kitchen table this morning, I realised that Sophie, the elderly chicken sitting on the cushion beside me has somehow created a considerably better business model than I have.

• She has virtually no overheads. I provide the premises, heating, food, water, cleaning and maintenance. Her contribution to operating costs is precisely zero.

• She has outsourced everything she doesn't enjoy. Catering, housekeeping, security and healthcare are somebody else's problem. Principally mine.

• She has one product. An egg. No range extensions, no confusing price architecture, no seasonal collections and absolutely no temptation to launch an online course.

• Scarcity is built into the business model. At her age, eggs are sufficiently rare that when one appears it is treated as a major event. She has accidentally mastered limited-edition marketing.

• She has positioned herself at the premium end of the market. On any sensible calculation involving food, accommodation and veterinary care, each egg probably costs about £47.

• She has an extraordinarily loyal customer. Despite the questionable return on investment, I continue to fund the enterprise.

• She doesn't compete on price. In fact, she has no idea what anybody else's eggs cost and couldn't care less.

• She has absolutely no social media presence. No LinkedIn, Instagram, mailing list or content strategy. Yet everyone who visits the house knows who she is.

• Her personal brand is superb. She's memorable, distinctive and has a story. Nobody goes home saying, "Melinda has a chicken." They remember the chicken who lives in the kitchen.

• She understands the power of visibility. Why hide in a henhouse when you can sit on a cushion beside the person who controls the food budget?

• She has niched ruthlessly. She isn't trying to be a duck, a goose or an emotional-support peacock. She knows exactly what she is.

• She has excellent boundaries. She works when she feels like it. Customer expectations have been successfully lowered to accommodate this.

• She has cracked recurring revenue without actually providing recurring product. I continue paying every month regardless of whether anything comes out the other end.

• She has turned age into part of her brand rather than a disadvantage. A young hen producing an egg isn't interesting. A very elderly chicken occasionally producing one is practically a miracle.

• She has achieved what most entrepreneurs dream of: a devoted customer, negligible personal effort, complete control over her working hours and absolutely no anxiety about next month's sales figures.

Perhaps she has simply understood something many of us take decades to learn — the objective isn't necessarily to keep producing more. It's to create enough value that people still want you around when you produce less.