The Old Salesman Said...

Conversation I overheard last week: "I was in sales with the Yellow Pages and this (held up his Smartphone) put us out of business, now I sell roofing material."

I've been thinking about that statement since I overheard it. Everyone realizes that we're living in a technology revolution like the planet has never seen. The problem is you don't respond until it touches your life. We've seen epic change the last decade and over the next five to ten years, we'll see even more change in the jobs we perform as well as the way business operates. Only a small percentage of us will adjust before the disruption touches us, the majority will be late to adjust and way behind the curve. If your in sales (everyone sells something) you'll be impacted as your competitors flank you. It's coming and you can't stop it. From retail to B2B, the sales funnel is changing rapidly. It's being funded by squeezing cost in one area of the enterprise and redeploying those dollars into the marketing funnel. Think about what Amazon is doing. For every dollar they save in operations, they spend one in marketing or expanding their business. Growth is the new black in business just as cashflow is king in personal life.

The most challenging thing I find in the Amazon example is how to apply their strategy to personal life or a business. You need a strategy to shift expenses and fund the "new normal". We can all think of ways to squeeze a dollar in our personal lives that we don't currently use, but many of us can't think of this in terms of our business lives. Everyone's said "Why didn't I think of that". It's not a fault, it's a blind spot, a cognitive bias. When was the last time you looked at something as simple as your credit card processing cost? What if you could use a portion of that savings to bring in new customers? It's the exact same strategy Amazon is using in every vertical they're in, and it's easy to apply.

I started with a conversation I overheard. Think about the quote. Do you want to adjust before you're disrupted? Or would you rather react after the fact? Give it some thought. Contact me, I'd like to help.