Well, somewhere there’s a Fair, with a line of attendees stretching down the Midway ending at the Funnel Cake Truck. Everybody loves Funnel Cakes, and the Funnel Cake Truck is always parked proudly on the Midway next to all the other food trucks. Many of us have tried the famous deep-fried Twinkie or, whatever one could imagine. Never give a deep fryer to the imaginative. Ok. This article is not about Funnel Cakes or Fairs. However, like that sign in the Midway, it got your attention. Funnel Cakes, Don’t have to Change. People will love them for years; they just have to replace the grease they’re cooked in every couple years, as I am sure all Funnel Cake Truck operators do.
What about your deliverable, are your customers lining up and down the Midway, waiting for your Funnel Cake. Too many organizations get blindsided by the reinvention of their deliverable by others they didn’t even imagine. They end up saying “What Just Happened,” more and more. Today industries should be saying “What can I make Happen.” Not “What just happened.”
Continuous advances in technology will enable anyone with a spark of imagination to create flames of Knowledge, with expanded visions and knowledge industries will be both created and transformed.
Today when I hear others say “I can’t believe that happened,” or when they say the opposite “That will never happen,” I just shrug my shoulders, and say “Wow, I am sorry you have allowed your needs for Absolutes to destroy your ability to imagine.” Too many do not appreciate the investment in imagination, and too many believe it cost too much to waste time looking for the unknown. Yes, the unimaginative will always think Absolutes are the better investment. The problem is absolutes have to come from what is, and that is absolutely a fact. When we create, we give birth to what could be. The best we can hope for with absolutes is maybe a slight improvement, and minor improvements are a waste of time when reinvention is needed.
Why do people in business still believe that things are the way they should always be? Why do sales organizations continue watching their deliverable become more and more commoditized and do nothing?
Why do people in business still believe that things are the way they should always be? Why do sales organizations continue watching their deliverable become more and more commoditized and do nothing? Why do salespeople themselves believe 1990 sales tactics are still relevant today? Why are Industries and their leaders not arguing for innovation and change inside their Boardrooms, instead of waiting until their disrupted than arguing unfairness in Court Rooms? Why do leaders of dying deliverables get stuck on the path toward improvement, when they know it’s not improvement which will save them it’s a reinvention which is needed? There are many questions one could ask of the complacency we see in many industries.
Personally, I think it’s a result of what I call “Hallucination Leadership” is when leaders continue on a path toward an oasis of stability, even though they know it’s a mirage.
Today no leader or Industry can take their deliverable, their Industry, their sales strategy, or those temporary loving customers for granted. Organizations must stop betting that their customers are more concerned about a relationship than an experienced based on a deliverable. A simple test is this; How many of your customers will send you a check to be their friend? Without a deliverable, there is no business relationship Period. Today customers want an experience which by default becomes a component of the product they buy it’s today’s technology which allows this. This new world of commerce being created by collaborating forces is no longer merely a physical exchange of goods and services. It’s a virtual world with no absolutes and where the speed to customers’ acceptance is measured in seconds, not weeks or months. Leaders must welcome thoughts of the unknown. Those who refuse to open their mind to what ifs, and refuse to look in different places. Will find themselves in the jail called irrelevancy waiting for their last customer to show up never believing they are not coming back.
Without exercising your imagination, your need for absolutes will weigh you down in the past. Let’s create our future and never fall victim to what someone else created to displace us.
Among consumers of tomorrow there will be more and more “digital natives” and a relevant and integrated customer experience will be the foundation of every business. In this scenario, a key concept, which often fades into the background, is that at the center of the digital activities, before technology and approaches, there are people and processes. In rethinking the entire customer experience, the ability to handle the technologies will be essential but, as always, if these will not be lowered in people’s lives, there will never be real value to offer. The key to read and deal with the changes remains indeed the Digital Transformation but it is a transformation based on empathy and only secondarily on technological aspects.
Great Article Ray. I agree 100%.
Thanks for commenting Chris Pehura, enjoy the Funnel Cake my my friend
I remember when I first heard the mention of i-stores — selling products online. I was very skeptical that they would get big. Boy, was I way off.
For some reason, I’m now in the mood for a funnel cake ice cream sandwich.