Strategic Planning Analogy #522: Timeless Timepieces

THE STORY
I used to work with a retailer who sold low-end watches. Suddenly the sales of these watches plummeted. Was it because someone had suddenly become better at selling low-end watches than this retailer? No.

What had happened was that one of the primary customers of this retailer was early adopters of cell phones. They were using their cell phones to tell time, so they stopped wearing watches…which meant they stopped buying watches.

This retailer wasn’t the only one seeing portions of the watch market vaporize due to people using their phones to tell time. Look at watch ads today. Watches are no longer sold as functional timepieces. They are either sold as a piece of jewelry or as an heirloom to be passed on to future generations.

Think about it…timepieces being sold as the epitome of timelessness. It can’t get much more bizarre than that.

THE ANALOGY
Watches were originally designed as a portable way to tell time. They were the superior solution to solving that problem. But then along came the cell phone. For a large sector of the population, the cell phone became a superior solution to the problem of portable time-telling.

When watches became an inferior solution to the problem, the demand for them dropped. It wasn’t that the phones became less effective at what they did. They were as good as before. It’s that a totally new solution appeared that was superior. Suddenly, a watch’s biggest threat came from phones.

This problem does not just impact watches. All businesses succeed by providing a superior solution to a problem. As a result, businesses tend to work diligently on perfecting their solution. They want to keep getting better, faster, cheaper with their solution offering.

But then…BAM! Something from out of the blue blows your solution out of the water. It no longer matters how good of a watch you make. The best, most accurate watch suddenly became an inferior portable timepiece to the phone. Making a better, faster, cheaper phone won’t get them back. The rules have changed.

This can happen to any business. A solution from an entirely different industry can make your industry irrelevant. The best, fastest, cheapest obsolete item is still obsolete.

Watch out for the unrelated industry (like phones) which can make your entire strategy (like watches) suddenly obsolete.

THE PRINCIPLE

The principle here is that while problems can be eternal, particular solutions to these problems can have a short time span of viability. This poses a risk to any business with a product mindset. While your product may be a great solution today to a given problem, that does not ensure that it will be the best solution tomorrow—no matter how well you execute on delivering that product.

Examples:

1. Laser Surgery has made eyeglasses an inferior solution to vision correction.
2. Digital communication of news has made paper-based communication of news (newspapers and magazines) an inferior option.
3. Every few months, somebody comes up with a new solution for losing weight. The solutions come from a wide variety of industries, from new food solutions to new exercise solutions to new surgical procedures to hypnosis to pills to whatever. Each solution’s time of relevance is so short that we call them “fads.”

Now you may be saying that this risk does not affect your business, because you are not product focused. You are “solution-focused.” You are always working to be a better solution for your customers.

Well, that may be true. But how broadly do you approach that solution? Do you only look for solution improvements within your industry? Are you only looking for better portable time solutions within the watch industry or are you considering solutions from different industries like phones?

Consider the situation facing GM which we talked about in an earlier blog. Teens and young adults used to look to cars as the superior solution to their desire for freedom. Suddenly, the youth of today fulfill their desire for freedom via their cell phone. Cars are no longer something to lust after to satisfy this freedom urge for this demographic. To many of them, cars are just a means of transportation. And given that the young adults of today often prefer to live in city centers, cars aren’t even seen as a particularly good solution to them for that solution. Mass transit, taxis and new car-sharing options like Zipcar appear cheaper and more convenient in an urban environment.

As a result, car ownership (and driver’s license ownership) is down in this demographic.

So GM is not just competing against other cars. On one front, it is competing against anything else that can do a better job of satisfying the urge to be free. On another front, they are competing against an urban lifestyle (where cars can be seen as a burden). And they are competing against new options to transportation ownership made possible through cell phones (like Zipcar). And they are competing against trends which reduce the need for transportation in the first place (working at home, shopping on-line, visiting via Skype, etc.).

Will traditional car ownership eventually fall victim to some form of the same fate as watches? I would certainly have some concern if I was in that industry.

Even teen/young adult clothing sales are down, due in part to a shift of spending from clothing to gadgets (like iphones and ipads). It used to be that clothing for teens was a superior solution for trying to be “cool” with their peers. Now, spending that money on gadgets creates a superior coolnesss. So gadgets get the money that used to go towards clothing.

So what does this imply for strategists?

1) Look Broadly for Solutions

First of all, if you want to own a solution over time, you’d better be prepared to look way outside your conventional industry, because the next leap in superiority may come from somewhere totally different.

Think about Bausch & Lomb. They used to be in the lens business because that was the superior way to improve eyesight. But they could see that non-lens solutions could do a better job at some eyesight solutions, so they diversified into areas far afield from lenses, like laser surgery and eye vitamins.

Proctor & Gamble used to look to chemistry for their cleaning solutions. Then they thought more broadly and looked to physics for cleaning solutions. The result is a number of new cleaning innovations like the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

How far afield from your core are you looking to find superior solutions to your core? Do you only read publications in your own industry and only go to trade shows in your own industry? You won’t find it there until it is too late.

2) Be Prepared to Redefine Solutions

Sometimes, if your product is no longer the best solution for a problem, you can reposition the product to be the right solution for a different problem. As mentioned above, watches are repositioning themselves as jewelry and heirloom solutions rather than timepiece solutions.

In the 1800s, circuses were the superior way for small communities to learn about the latest and newest things. When that no longer worked, they repositioned themselves to be a great solution for nostalgia. I talked about that here.

When Hamburger Helper was introduced, it was a superior solution for dinner convenience because it could be made much faster than a conventional dinner at that time. Later, when other alternatives (microwave, take-out, etc.) could provide dinners more conveniently (faster & with less effort), Hamburger Helper was no longer the winner on convenience. General Mills has tried to come up with other solutions for Hamburger Helper such as:

1. The convenience meal your kids will actually eat; or
2. The convenience meal you can feel better about serving because you actually took part in preparing it with your own fresh beef.

I’m not sure any of these tactics are working, but at least they are trying. You may need to do the same in order to stay relevant.

SUMMARY

Problems may be eternal, but the best way to solve the problem changes over time. Often the superior replacement solves the problem in an entirely new way from an entirely different industry with entirely different skills, technologies and business models. It is not an incrementally better status quo, but rather something which makes anything remotely similar to the status quo obsolete. The long term solution is to either: a) Keep an eye outside the industry to discover solutions which can keep you from becoming obsolete; or b) Find a way to redefine your product so that it can be the superior solution to something else (where it can still be relevant).

FINAL THOUGHTS
The best timepiece on the wrist” is not a solution. It is a description. The solution is at a higher level—portable time-telling. If you don’t define the problem at the higher level, you will miss some of the creative ways to solve the problem.

Strategic Planning Analogy #454: Strategy Cut-Outs

THE STORY
A couple of years ago, I was at a tourist location while on vacation.  There was a section of the area devoted to souvenir shops.  These shops had quite a variety of souvenirs to offer—everything from T-shirts to antiques.  Most of the items had something printed on them referring to the phenomenon which drew tourists to the location in the first place.

But there was one store which stood out.  It was selling life-sized photographs of famous celebrities, cut and mounted on wood so that you could have them stand next to you.  In particular, the store was pushing life-size cut-outs of Justin Bieber, the hottest celebrity of that moment.

I thought it might be interesting to have one of these in my home (until I saw how expensive they were). 

But it got me thinking.  What if I had one of these Justin Bieber cut-outs in my house and suddenly the real Justin Bieber showed up?  The natural reaction would be to ignore the cut-out and pay attention to the real person.  All that money paid for the cut-out would have been a waste, because it has very little value when you have access to the real thing.

And if you saw someone ignore the real Justin Bieber to spend time with the cut-out photograph, you’d think they were a little bit crazy.

THE ANALOGY
Sometimes, I think strategic planners can get a little crazy, like someone who would rather hang out with a photograph of Justin Bieber than the real person.

Strategic plans are an attempt to represent what is going on in the environment and how we would like to change it for our company’s benefit.  They are not reality themselves, but merely a representation of that reality (and the future reality we desire).  They are a “cut-out” rather than the real thing. 

But, as strategist, we tend to love those planning documents.  There can be great joy in getting such a document completed.  And sometimes strategists can get all caught up with all their other documents, and data, and graphs, and spreadsheets.  There’s just so much of it to occupy our time that there is no need to ever leave the office.

But reality takes place outside the office out in the marketplace.  We can go out there and see our real Justin Bieber (the world we compete in) any time we want.  But instead, we seem content to embrace our hand-made cut-out version of Justin Bieber and never leave the office.

Yeah, the cut-out is nice, but isn’t visiting the real thing occasionally even nicer?

 

THE PRINCIPLE
The principle here is that great strategic planning goes beyond dreaming up great theories in offices or in printing up thick strategy books.  The best strategies are most in tune with the marketplace.  Therefore, it is helpful if the planning process spends time interacting with the marketplace where the strategy gets played out.

1) Get Out in the Field

When was the last time your strategists went on a sales call with your sales team, or spent time listening in at the call center, or visited (or worked at) the factory, or spent time in direct contact with your customers?  These are the types of places where your strategy either succeeds or fails.  The better you understand them, the better you can prepare to win there.

At most of the retail companies where I have worked, I have insisted that whenever my team traveled on business, they should carve out extra time to get out and experience the local marketplace.  I told them to visit our stores, the stores of competition and even stores that had nothing to do with us.  After all, you never know where you will learn something new that will be useful in strategy.

I was appalled one time when a retailer I worked for opened up the first prototype for a new retail concept.  The top executives got on the corporate jet and then drove directly to the store.  They cut the ribbon for the grand opening and then went directly back home.  No time was spent observing or talking to customers.  No time was spent visiting the competition.  What a missed opportunity to learn.

When H. Ross Perot was placed on the board of directors for General Motors, one of the first things he did was go to a GM dealership to buy a car.  He wanted to experience what consumers experienced when buying a car.  He also wanted to own and drive a GM car to better understand the product.  Later, Perot was shocked to find out that many of the other board members no longer bought cars—they were given to them by the company.  And most of them no longer drove cars—they had drivers.  And at least one no longer even had a valid driver’s license.  How do you build strategies for the marketplace when you are so out of touch with the marketplace?

Granted, you cannot go everywhere and see everything.  But you should at least spend some time experiencing the world of the line employees and your customers.  This gives you some “real life” context for evaluating strategic options.  And just as you can learn more spending time with the real Justin Bieber than you can with a photo cut-out of Justin Bieber, you can learn things out in the field that would never show up just looking at numbers and documents in your office.

And to supplement personal experience, include more input from those who live out in the field.  Invite input from line employees, customers, suppliers and distributors.  With all the social media tools out there, it has never been easier to include all the voices of the marketplace in your planning process.  Not only will this allow you to learn more for strategy design, but it will create greater buy-in and cooperation from the field during strategy execution (because they were part of the design process).

2) We’re Not in the Publishing Business

A lot of strategists get upset when all of their strategy documents and presentations get ignored.  After the strategy meetings, everything given to the leaders gets put on their shelf, never to be touched again.

Why does this happen?  To a lot of the leaders, all that material is like the photo cut-out of Justin Bieber—not quite fully real to their regular day job.   After the planning meeting, they have to go back to living life out in the field with the real Justin Bieber.  And given the choice of spending time with the cut-out or the real thing, they naturally opt for the real thing. 

Remember, a company’s strategy is not what is put in a book, but is the result of all the daily decisions made throughout the organization.  If the written strategy is not made real at the point where all the decisions are made, then it is not the real strategy.

Strategists are not publishers.  Our end products are not books, Powerpoint decks, budgets and so on.  Our end product is a transformed company which is moving in the direction of the vision.  Therefore, to succeed, we need to make our strategy relevant in the minds of the people making the daily decisions.  To do that, the strategy needs to get translated into the context of the reality of where decisions are made.

To do that, strategists need to spend time at the beginning out in the field so as to understand that

context.  In addition, strategists need to spend time out in the field after the strategy is crafted, helping the decision-makers see how to relate the strategy to their daily decisions.  And that cannot be done by just hanging around your office.

SUMMARY
Successful strategies are the ones which impact what happens out in the marketplace.  That impact is increased when a) the strategy is built upon the knowledge of the realities of the marketplace; and b) those who are making the daily decisions out in the marketplace understand how the strategy is relevant to the choices they make.  This requires that strategist do more than just produce books, spreadsheets and Powerpoint decks.  They need to spend time out in the reality of the marketplace.

FINAL THOUGHTS
All of this is not to imply that analytics, budgets, spreadsheets, presentations, strategy books and vision statements are a waste of time.  No, they help to quantify and communicate the core strategy.  They also help to flesh out strategic insights and concepts.  But unless one has a deeper, more intimate knowledge of the reality of the marketplace—something that cannot be found just studying sterile numbers—you will not fully comprehend the context and relevancy of that information.

It is like designing a house without understanding the terrain the house is to be built on.  It may look great on the blueprint, but it cannot become a reality because it is inappropriate for the terrain.  First, go out to the site and learn the terrain, so that the house you design on the blueprint can actually be built and be the right structure for that location.

Strategic Planning Analogy #429: Musical Chairs

THE STORY
When I went to parties as a child, we played a game called Musical Chairs. The game used a circle of chairs. There would be one less chair than the number of children playing.

As music played in the background, the children would walk around the circle of chairs. When the music stopped, everyone would try to sit in a chair. Since there was one less chair than children, one child would not get a chair. That person was called “out” and was no longer allowed to play the game.

Then, one of the chairs would be removed and the music would start again. The process would be repeated until only one child was left sitting in the one chair that was left. That child was declared the winner.

Sometimes the game would get very active when two children would fight over a single chair. Although both would try to claim rights to that chair, one of them would lose out. After all, the rules stated that only one person could sit in a given chair. Since there were fewer chairs than children, by definition someone would lose out in each round.

THE ANALOGY
The chairs in Musical Chairs can be thought of as being like business opportunities. And the children can be thought of as being like companies who want to take advantage of those business opportunities.

Like in the game, there are more companies trying to take advantage of the opportunity than there are opportunities. As a result, companies lose out and can no longer play the game in that arena.

You can see this happening all the time in business. Whenever there is a “hot” business space, there will be tons of businesses trying to exploit it. Unfortunately, there are too many companies chasing these “hot” spaces. As a result, most companies do not successfully exploit the opportunity. “When the music stops,” and the companies rush for a seat at the business, not all will find one.

Look at the recent “hot” spaces like Solar Panels, Social Media Couponing, iPad imitations, etc. Companies are quickly exiting the businesses or going bankrupt. Yes, the business space may be “hot” but most of the businesses trying to exploit the opportunity fail. There are not enough chairs to satisfy all who want to play.

THE PRINCIPLE
The principle here is that merely finding a good place for your company to play is not sufficient. So-called “good places” attract too much interest relative to the opportunity. As a result, these “good places” quickly become “bad places” for those who cannot quickly secure a solid ownership of share in that space. Like in the game of Musical Chairs, most players are asked to leave the game because they could not find a chair for their business to occupy.

Therefore, strategies require two elements—a viable space, and a way to aggressively fight to win a place within that space.

Best Buy Example
I was reminded of this principle while reading the book “Becoming the Best” by Dick Schulze, the founder of Best Buy. The book talks about the history of the development of the massive Best Buy retail chain. There were several times in the early years when Best Buy was on the verge of bankruptcy. Best Buy could have very easily become one of those companies who could not secure a chair and been told by the marketplace to leave the game.

Yet, Best Buy endured to become the last national consumer electronics retail chain left in America. It won the game of musical chairs in the consumer electronics space. Why? Part of the answer can be seen in the sub-title of the book: “A Journey of Passion, Purpose, and Perseverance.”

Dick Schulze did not just “show up” at the game. He was quick, aggressive, and persevering. He understood that business is a race and that you have to run aggressively, with purpose and endurance, in order to win that race.

A great example was back in the late 1980s when a large competitor, called Highland Appliance, decided to enter Best Buy’s territory in order to drive the smaller Best Buy into bankruptcy. Realizing what was going on, Best Buy reacted quickly and aggressively. First, Best Buy acted quickly to grab market share in markets where Highland was committed to grow, but moving slower.

Second, Best Buy was the first to realize that the old commissioned sales model (which Highland, Best Buy and everyone else was using) was becoming obsolete. Therefore, Best Buy quickly changed its approach and became the first in the industry to own the superior business model which was an approach more like a supermarket (no commissioned salespeople). They called the new business model “Concept II.” Because of these quick and aggressive tactics, Best Buy survived and it was Highland Appliance who soon went bankrupt.

In other words, with Concept II Best Buy developed a superior position where they could win (a great space) and then quickly and aggressively did whatever it took to own that space before anyone else could get there (a great race). By doing both tasks, Best Buy won the game of musical chairs in its industry and reaped the rewards of being the leader of consumer electronics when all the money was being spent to convert from the analog to the digital era.

Sure, everyone knew that there were great rewards to be had if you were in the digital space when that conversion from analog to digital took place. But not everyone who wanted to take advantage of this opportunity succeeded. Best Buy succeeded when others failed because it worked faster, harder and smarter at securing the right position in the space (Concept II) and then did whatever it took to make sure nobody took it away from them. They found a chair to sit in and never let anyone push them out of the chair.

General Motors Example
An example in the opposite direction would be General Motors. In recent years, it was becoming apparent that the old automotive business model of owning a huge portfolio with lots of different brands was no longer the best place to be. The wise business move would be to sell off some the weaker brands and concentrate more effort on the stronger brands.

General Motors understood this, but they were slow in the race to execute the strategy. Compare their speed and aggressiveness in execution versus Ford. Ford acted quickly to sell off its Land Rover brand, which was going out of favor due to its focus on large, gas guzzling vehicles. As a result of acting quickly, Ford was able to exit the business while also getting some cash from the sale of the division.

By contrast, General Motors was slower in reacting with its large gas guzzling Hummer brand. By waiting longer, that gas guzzling segment became even less desirable. And Ford had already sold its Land Rover division to the best potential buyer for such a brand. As a result, General Motors could not find a buyer for Hummer and had to shut it down at a huge loss.

A similar situation happened with their northern European brands. Ford acted quickly and found a buyer for Volvo. General Motors was much slower and more timid in reacting and could not secure a buyer for its Saab division. GM had to shut it down for a loss.

Both Ford and General Motors saw the same good strategy of shrinking their portfolio. Both tried to execute that same “good” strategy. But because Ford was quicker and more aggressive, it was able to execute the strategy far more successfully than General Motors. Same strategy, but different results due to differences in speed and aggressiveness. Just as it takes speed and aggressiveness to secure a chair in Musical Chairs, it takes those same qualities to win in business.

SUMMARY
Strategic planning needs to be more than just identifying places where money can be made. It needs to also develop a path whereby its company can out-hustle the competition and survive the race to become one of the survivors. Great opportunities cause a large rush of firms who try to exploit it. Most of these firms will not benefit from the opportunity because they lose the race to become one of the few firms which can secure a “chair” in the industry. Slow imitators rarely achieve benefits as large as the quick and aggressive innovators. So it you want to win, not only find the right space, but find a way to win the race.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Musical Chairs requires many rounds before a winner can be declared. Just because you survive any early round does not mean that you will survive later rounds. The same is true in business. Don’t get complacent because of early success. This is an endurance race. You have to keep running.

Analogy #176: Get Human

THE STORY
Ever try to call up one of those “help” lines for a company and get a worthless computerized phone system? It happens to me all the time. The computer voice will start out by listing about 5 types of problems, and you are to press a number between 1 and 5, depending on which problem applies to your situation.

Almost 100% of the time, my problem doesn’t come anywhere near the five options they give. Therefore, I have no idea which number to press. So I press a number at random hoping that the next level will be more helpful. It almost never is.

Many times, I make these calls from my cell phone or a telephone where the touchpad is in the handset. Therefore, I have to take the phone away from my ear in order to press the proper number. By the time I get the handset back to my ear, I have missed the next round of instructions.

One of my favorite web sites is http://www.gethuman.com/. The primary purpose of the Get Human site is to help people avoid these computerized phone systems and get access to a real human being.

The site lists hundreds of companies and the tricks you have to do when phoning each company to avoid the computerized system and get direct access to a human being. In many cases, the site tells you to “ignore whatever the computer is saying” and press a particular sequence of numbers and symbols. Other times, it tells you to ignore everything the computer says and just wait. Eventually, you outlast the computer and it goes directly to a human. A third approach is that it tells you what to press at each prompt to take the shortest path to a real operator.

This past month, they added a blog feature to the site where people can share their horror stories about using these phone systems.

THE ANALOGY
I must not be the only person frustrated with the lack of help on these help lines, if there is an entire web site devoted to avoiding them. This brings up an interesting question—do companies realize how infuriating these calls can be for their customers? Do they realize how much ill will they can create with their customers?

Most of the time when we talk strategy, we talk about the big picture. We talk about large visions and elaborate positions versus all of the competition in the marketplace. These are all very important, because if you do not stake a claim to a winning position, you have very little chance of success.

However, staking a claim and keeping a claim are two different issues. You get to decide where you want to stake your claim, but the customer decides whether you have earned the right to keep it. If you disappoint your customers, they will pull that stake right out of the ground and throw it away.

In this day and age, direct customer contacts with a company may not happen very often. Your call center may be one of the few chances you get to make the right impression. If those calls turn into a nightmare for your customer (as they often do for me), then all of that fancy big-picture stuff may be for naught. That bad interaction my cause me to reject your firm entirely.

Therefore, strategies must be developed at two levels—the big picture and the little picture. The big picture is figuring out how you want to win the entire game. The little picture is figuring out how to win on every individual interaction.

THE PRINCIPLE
The principle here concerns interaction and transaction-based strategies. Sales do not miraculously appear all at once. Instead, they tend to come in small doses, a transaction at a time. The more successful transactions one has, the more income one receives.

If you blow it at the point of the interaction, there will be no transaction, and the income dries up. It’s as simple as that. Therefore, a part of your strategic planning needs to deal with ensuring that each interaction between the prospective customer and the company reinforce your strategic objectives.

In many ways, a strategy can be looked at as a series of promises to your customers. For example, if you are Disney, you are making a promise that the interactions will be wholesome entertainment for the whole family. That is why there was some outrage over the recent photos of Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair magazine, which pictured this Disney Hannah Montana star in a less wholesome manner.

For a department store like Nordstrom, there is a promise of great quality, great selection and outstanding personal service. Many people are willing to pay a premium price for this promise. Yet, if the service at the store disappoints, the promise is no longer believed, and the strategy is destroyed.

American Airlines likes to tell people that “They know why you fly.” However, at the point of interaction this past month, when thousands of flights were suddenly cancelled, American made it clear that they really don’t get it after all. The promise vaporized.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help ensure that the big picture strategy gets translated down to the interaction and transaction level.

1) What are the promises implied in our strategy?

2) What would the customer expect those promises look like at every point of interaction with the company?

3) How can we create a process which guarantees that the customer expectations are at least met (if not exceeded)?

4) Whenever we are making a change in the way things are done, will the customer perceive the change as bringing us closer or further away from our promises?

5) In a crisis mode, will customers see us as abandoning our promises?

6) How do we react when a salesperson lands a big sale, but does it in a way that destroys the strategic intent of the interaction? Do we reinforce bad behavior?

7) Do the people developing our customer interfaces (phone, on-line, etc.) understand enough of the big picture strategy so that they can ensure that the interface reinforces that strategy?

8) What do we reward people for? Is the quality of the customer interaction on that list?

9) Even for the people who do not have direct interaction with the customer, do they see themselves as a support team to help make the interaction better?

10) How do we handle mistakes made in an interaction with the customer?

11) What about the after-sale interactions the customer has with the product or service? Do these help or hurt their impression of the strategy? Remember, they may need to make another purchase later or talk to their friends who haven’t purchased yet.

Finally, we (as executives) need to ask ourselves how much we really know about our company’s customer interactions. In prior blogs, we talked about how important it is get firsthand knowledge about your company’s interactions from the customer’s perspective (see “Do You Do Breakpack” and “Stuffed Shirt”). Try to buy something off your web page. Go on a sales call. Try to complain on your help line. Better yet, spend some time on the other end of the phone listening to customer complaints.

Ross Perot was shocked when he found out that the directors at General Motors no longer bought cars and in some cases no longer drove them. They had no idea what customers had to go through to get a car repaired. Yet these directors had no qualms about making decisions for the automobile company. Out of touch directors lead to an out of touch company that lost a tremendous amount of market share.

You can’t fix it if you are unaware it is broken. And ignorance is no excuse.

SUMMARY
Although it is critical to get the big picture strategy correct, that work is worthless if the company cannot translate it into the right customer experience every time there is a customer interaction. A strategy is not just a theory. It needs to tie into the specific details of how the customer interacts with us.

In reality, our position is what the customer believes about us in their mind. If their experiences cause them to come to a different mental conclusion than what we desire, then we have failed.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Customer perceptions are formed based on many things. Impressions may be formed years before you get a shot at a face to face interaction. Consider the problems at Ford—they have achieved a quality level equal to Toyota, but are not getting credit for it. There is too much bad history to make that statement credible. There’s a reason why the old sayings about what FORD stood for were created by customers: “Found On Road Dead” or “Fix Or Repair Daily.”

Be vigilant in protecting your reputation. Once it goes, it is hard to get back. Grand strategies cannot make up for years of disappointing interactions. Fix the interactions first, and then you have a foundation to make the new strategy credible.