9:53 AM

So there are no easy answers to today’s economic problems. With that said there are a myriad of ways out of the problem and opportunities to grow. This post is about the importance of having a business that is able to re-think, re-engineer and re-tool so you can increase sales in an economic downturn.

It’s an awesome sunny day and I hop in my old car (it’s a 2005) and fly off to the Apple Store to pick up a new case for my laptop. I arrive at the mall seven minutes early. It’s 9:53AM and there are about 10 people milling around the door, 2 men and the rest were women.

As I walked up you could tell a few of the folks were hurried. I on the other hand I was content that I had arrived seven minutes early and welcomed the short break from the hustle and bustle of being a business owner, husband and proud papa of 3 girls.

My attention turned to the three women who found a common bond in their iPhone. Being the proud papa of two iPhones, one MacBook, one MacBook Pro, one iMac and and a Mac Mini; it pains me to make the following admission; they were all having trouble with their iPhones. Here is the punch line of this blog. Two of the three women had the new 3G and the other one had the first version that she sheepishly referred to as the “old one”.

Get out! Since when did one year become the end of a product life cycle? All the businesses I consult for are still using flyers that are 5 years or more old and the product mix has changed so little that they can actually pull this off. Other than the printed materials being dated, their products or services have changed very little.

So what am I trying to say, change, change fast, change often or die. There is a reason Google has nearly three times the number of searches when compared to Yahoo who is second; Apple maintains 70% market-share of the iPod market and commands more profit per machine than any other computer manufacturer. Moreover, if you look at any other organization or individual that is number one, change and evolution is part of their DNA. Tiger Woods is clearly the best golfer, when he walks off the course, he shifts his attention from competition to figuring out how he can be better.

Exercise Room:

If clients lined up at your door from one year ago:
1.) Would they see any improvements in your service or product offering?
2.) Are there any product or service changes in your product or service pipeline that could be rolled out within a year?
3.) Do you have the mechanisms or individuals within your team that can drive change that positively affects sales results?

Call us to ask how we can help and check out Bob Kriegel to learn more about the importance of being change ready.