As an American born in the early eighties I am lucky enough to have been born into a culture that clings onto freedom. This freedom manifests itself in speech, media, sports, and also the business world. Most of the largest and most successful businesses in this day and age are businesses that were just getting started during my formative years, so in a way it is almost as if I grew up with them. While I was watching “Saved by the Bell” and wishing I could order pizza in class from my brick cell phone like Zach Morris, or one day see laser guns like they used in “G.I. Joe”, businesses that would shape the culture of my adulthood were being born.
I am reading “The Culture Code” written by Clotaire Rapaille. In this book he speaks a lot about what people want, versus what they say they want. He refers to a particular instance to prove his point. Around the time that Chrysler was deciding if the world was ready for the new Jeep, Clotaire was brought in to assess the public’s interest, and how to move forward with production and reformation of the Jeep that everyone associates with the military. He mentions people talking about gas mileage and safety as important, which are two things NO ONE thinks of when envisioning a Jeep. When he changed the way he started to ask the focus groups to think of their first memories of Jeep, and what they think of when they do envision a Jeep the responses were very different. He started to see just how this vehicle defined an era of freedom, hope and change. The Jeep is now one the best selling American cars ever made.
This is what fascinates me about people. People very rarely say what they really, really want, and often they are perhaps unaware of what that is. Instead, when asked what do you like, or what do you want, they respond with what the culture tells them to want or like. People haven’t changed, but the business world has had to adapt for that very reason. Don’t get me wrong, I am just as guilty of letting businesses dictate the culture as anyone else. I like many other people my age have fallen into the “Apple Hole”. I have 3 Ipods, a Macbook, and Ipad and I am a self proclaimed Mac fanatic. When asked why, my answers are essentially the ones that those clever “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” commercials told me. I have become the customer that these businesses drool over, and chances are no matter how much you resist you will become one too. Apple does a fantastic job of making slight improvements (just enough to make it new) and continuing to dictate and change what we think we need or want.
The business world has become so dependent on this type of environment that now they often spend much more on advertising and marketing than they do on product research. All too often the rapid evolution of the “now” is causing small businesses to succeed based on the modernity of a certain product or service, but then once that product evolves into something different, either the business doesn’t realize it at all, or they realize it too late.
How can the small business world keep up with the culture dictating giants like Google or Apple? What makes a business able to survive in a business world where the “now” becomes the “yesterday” so fast?
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
-Henry Ford
-Grant Mankin
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