I work with a lot of business leaders who fail to possess any imaginative qualities. They operate their business models with a very sterile approach. They also do not win very often. They struggle to find out how to help their business models produce some excitement for their customers to see. Remember, customers need to be entertained. They may tell you they do not need to be entertained, but their consuming actions do not support those descriptions. Customers spend more when they feel better about how they spend. Logic does not always win the buying battle. Feeling good will dominate how consumers spend. Your improved imagination will work wonders in helping your customers feel better about how they spend money in your business environment.
The past couple of decades have been filled with a lot of great business advice. One of the main themes that has been approached heavily during these times of good advice is the one that describes how important it is to provide your customers with a good experience. The 'experience' your customers witness has been strongly evaluated. There are two sides to the 'experience' equation that flips the consumer coins. On one side of the improved 'experience' coin is the art of practicing error-free transactions. This side of the consumer coin includes the art of making sure your business model does what it says it will do and that it does those things very well. When the consumer flips their coin to decide how well your business model performs for them, your model better at least land on this side of the coin well. Your model needs to be able to have good execution land present on one of the sides of that flipped coin. The other side, if it lands upwards when flipped, needs to make sure the customer sees how good your business imagination delivered what they feel good about seeing. Your success will hinge greatly upon how well your coin performs both of these sides.
If given a competitive choice, your customers will flip the coin most often that carries both sides of their purchasing desires. Your customers want to be served correctly, efficiently, respectfully and properly. That is one side of that flipped consumer coin. The other side of that flipped coin is the side that helps your customer feel good about where they did their business. How they feel about where they go is as important as making sure their transactions were handled correctly. If given a choice, customers will honor the business models most that make sure both sides of the coin are present when flipped. The models that work harder to include both concepts on each side of that consumer coin will be the business models who win the most. Hands down.
Today, we are not going to hammer how important it is to make sure your business mistakes get eliminated from the consumer view. That is a subject all by itself. Today, we need to make sure we understand how important having a great imagination is to the things we need to do to make sure our business model provides this wonderful service to its consumer base. Having a great imagination is vital to winning big, long term. It is one of the top seventeen principles to business success. Imagination. Get good at it. Make sure your business has a good imagination.
Years ago I studied how to become a certified interior designer. The furniture company I worked for in California during the 1970's provided me with the education to complete that training. It made perfect sense to me to add this kind of skill to my management practices. My future success in the furniture industry would be better served with a deeper depth of knowledge added to the things I wanted to achieve in the industry I loved to manage. I discovered some life-long lessons from several of the instructors. I still hear them repeating some phrases they always said. One of those reoccurring phrases have become a major part of how I do the design work I do. The instructor always flipped out this one single phrase, "Always remember just a little bit of black." He would work on teaching some concepts about coordination or continuity. During the work of his teaching he would use examples that represented many types of views to make his points more clearer. At the end of each produced example, he would add something to the arrangement that included the color black. He would point it out in everything he produced. Then he would always say, "Always remember, just a little bit of black." That phrase has stuck with me forever. I always remember, just a little bit of black when I arrange the work I do. He successfully made his mark. I still carry that specific torch.
The other concept I continue to remember from another design instructor I had is the idea that nobody will ever be able to invent a new color. All the colors have been invented. He would tell us that our future work with interior designs will never include the discovery of a new color. All the colors have already been discovered. He would describe to us that we do not need to approach our future design work with the strong premise that we are inventing new stuff. We need to recognize that our design work in the future will never be about inventing new colors, new shapes, or new lines. All of these things have already been discovered. Instead, he impressed upon us that we will merely be asked to learn how to re-arrange the already invented things into new combinations. His repeated effort to teach us this lesson still resonates deeply in my mind. He often quipped, "No new colors, just remember, no new colors...they've all been discovered. Re-arrange how they blend together. That's it."
This last lesson was one of the best lessons I could ever learn. Your business model requires that you perform certain routine requirements, standard stuff in all trades, in order for it to produce well. We all know what needs to be done. The important and routine stuff that we must do to manage well how our business models perform is not a secret to the ones who win more often. However, the owners that learn how to take those already discovered requirements and somehow re-arrange them into a better package of consumer delivery will be the owners who find more interesting results that win more often. Business owners will not actually discover new working business fundamentals. All of them have already been discovered. The best business owners will learn how to re-arrange those requirements in new ways that fit better to the new consumer molds of how we plan to please. The owners that figure this stuff out will be the ones who perform the best. This kind of new work requires a huge amount of healthy imagination. It does not suggest that we will be introducing new ways to operate models of business success. It does, however, suggest that we will be reassembling old ideas and established facts into new ways and uses for performing success. Imagination then becomes our best friend. We need to use our imagination to discover new combinations for managing required stuff.
Successful business owners get this kind of stuff down well. You can see it in their models. You can see it in their consumer responses. They seem to harness excellent foot traffic. They produce good volume numbers. They have excitement inside the halls of where they work. They seem to grow with each day of continuing events. They operate business models that have good energy. They introduce things that work that we thought never possible. They get copied a lot. Everyone does what they do. They lead the way. They get the most out of the least on just about everything they ever touch and guide. All of these results are attributes that come from having a great imagination. If your business model is lacking in these wonderful things, it might be worth taking a longer, more honest look at your levels of supported imagination. The formation of the mental images you hold about how you see your business perform may be limited behind too many reasonable perceptions. Maybe you need to become more creative. Remember, you do not need to invent anything new. In fact, you cannot invent anything new. All you can truly do is rearrange how invented things come together better. Try some new arrangements. Get uncomfortable about doing some newer things. Go ahead, think about how some new ideas would help your model perform better. Re-arrange some stuff.
Imagination is the creative power of the soul. Permit that imagination to find a home inside your business model. Allow it to work overtime. Honor its ways. Give it strength and support. Nurture those who carry this special trait. Give them more power to try. Do not limit where your business model can go. Work harder on moving the mental juices that feed your imagination. Make sure it does not starve. Increase the capacity of your business model to honor more ways to promote better levels of working imaginations. Promote new ideas and new combinations for doing old things. Give your model a chance to shine. You will discover how much your customers will love this move. Your customers have the second side of that buying coin that you can fulfill. When your customers flip that coin to help them buy, make sure your model honors both sides of that coin. It might land on the side of entertainment today. If your model is fundamentally right, but expressly dull...your customers may go somewhere else to buy what they flipped to buy. You lose again.
Get more creative. Develop a stronger sense for honoring better levels of a good imagination. Make it time to re-arrange what your model does. Make sure your business model has a good imagination.
Until next time...
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