Thanks Bambi Gordon, Small Business Mentor & Legend. Find out why at www.thewoo.com.au
Finding customers?
Managing cash flow?
Government red tape?
Getting staff off Facebook and back to Spider Solitaire…I mean…(*cough*) work?
I think the biggest challenge for most businesses is knowing what business they are in. Seriously!
So many businesses – small and large – have either lost sight or never really known what their business is about in the first place. And it seems that the bigger the business the deeper the disconnect between the business purpose and the business function.
Let’s look at a really public example of big businesses that have lost the plot – because they don’t know what business they are in: Traditional media; newspapers, radio, tv.
These are organisations whose senior decision makers are charged with the responsibility of generating revenue through advertising sales.
Their primary ‘function’ is to secure advertising revenue by selling an audience to their customers.
They create content with the single purpose of attracting readers, listeners, viewers, so that they can, in turn, sell that audience on.
Now their ad sales revenue is under attack . Why?
Because their audience is being wooed by brands that are relevant.
What a pity that they didn’t see the purpose of their business as bonding their brand (their masthead, station logo, content) to an audience; instead of seeing the audience as just that thing they had to have to be able to fulfil the primary function of their business – selling ads.
As soon as an opportunity came along to migrate the relationship and expand the touch points that the media brand had with their audience to new media technologies, they saw the technology as a competitor to their beautiful big sheets of white paper, or their transmitter tower – a new competitor that may compete against their core function: Selling ads.
So, they failed to embrace the new technologies…Whilst their audience was greedily gobbling it up.
If they realised that their purpose was the relationship between their audience and their brand – they would have embraced the new technologies as simply another environment for that relationship to thrive.
I saw a tweet recently about a new campaign by an overseas newspaper industry group that is suppose to encourage advertisers to consider newspapers in their media buy. It is a good looking campaign that talks all about what nice big advertisements in a newspaper can do for an advertiser
It has all the usual things that you expect from these sorts of campaigns – like de-positioning the traditional competitors by pointing out how newspapers can be consumed on a train, which radio and TV can’t –further proof of being a little out of touch with technology…
But not once does it refer to any particular newspaper brands bond, trust, relationship, with their readers….
Someone who works on a major metro newspaper recently said to me “Innovation is difficult when the aim of the game is to sell advertising”.
Well, yes, it would be. If you think that the aim of the game, the purpose of your business, is its function.
But that isn’t the main game. It is just how the business is funded.
Imagine the innovation to traditional media – imagine the innovation and marketing strength to your own business – if every single person recognised, shared and believed in the true purpose of the business.
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Do you know what business you are in? Really?…
Is the biggest challenge for business staffing, or cash flow, or finding customers? Or is the biggest challenge for business not actually understanding what business they are in, in the first place?…
[...] So what is the real purpose of your business? You may think you know, but you may want to think again. The wrong answer may threaten your future. The Loft Group [...]
Hi Bambi,
You raise some interesting points here. As a small business owner, I sometimes puzzle over the plethora of articles on SEO and web analytics. I suspect if I defocus from my real job – producing original content for business – and start wringing my hands over the performance of my marketing strategy my angst will start to shift with the clients walking out the door.
I’m not surprised you say big business suffers the most from this problem. Any small business that works this way won’t be around for long.
Okay, now back to work. I *am* keeping my eye on marketing techniques but what I really have to dedicate my time to is getting copy out the door.
[...] this post from The Loft Group Blog http://theloftgroup.com.au/blog/?p=239 business is viewed as a vehicle of purpose as opposed to business as system intended only create [...]