It’s been proven repeatedly throughout the last 50 years that times of economic hardship are often when the next great company is born. This is a principle that author Jim Champy attributes to the disruptive nature of new business models. While the old guard struggles to maintain its position, a new business with fresh ideas and a unique presentation can break through and rise to the top. What goes unseen, however, is the drive and determination to make the climb.
Smart Business recently got some thoughts from Champy on his latest book, “Inspire,” and what the best firms do to keep customers coming back.
Can you talk about the deeper connection between a business and its customers that has developed over the past several years?
Customers today are looking for value in a different form. They want to buy products and services from companies that are consistent with the customer’s own values. I was struck while doing the research for ‘Inspire’ with how companies are really engaging customers at a value level. I write in the book about a company called Honest Tea, a company whose name represents the kind of honesty and authenticity that it attempts to represent. It connects with its customers at a values level. There are many customers today that want more than just a superficial relationship with the companies with which they’re doing business.
In ‘Inspire,’ you state: ‘Make sure your message is authentic and represents who you really are.’ What is it that causes businesses to fall short on this promise?
There are several principles of authenticity that you have to practice to avoid this trap. The first is that authenticity must pervade everything you do, from formulating the product to your relationships with your own people to your relationships with customers and suppliers and, more broadly, how your company operates.
Second, being authentic requires having a set of principles about transparency. You need a willingness to be transparent. In some sense, you have to be so pure that you’ve got to be willing to put everything you do out there so customers and the public can see what you do. If you want to be committed to a higher sense of purpose, you also have to be committed to being very transparent. I also believe that companies really have no choice today other than to increase their degree of transparency.
Finally, from a marketing perspective, whether you have a higher purpose or not, customers define in their minds who you are and what your company stands for. You can put advertising out there to capture the interest and attention of your customers, but they decide for themselves and they broadcast it on the Internet.
You note that it is possible to commercialize an idea that comes from a higher sense of purpose. How do you reconcile that to people who feel companies are either for-profit and bad or not-for-profit and noble?
Let’s not forget that there are also companies that sit right in between; they’re for-profit, but they are also very noble. I think there are multiple private-sector companies that have this high sense of purpose. The Honest Tea example is one where the company is profitable and it makes decisions based on profitability but still is highly respectful of its suppliers. They are highly respectful of the people in India and the Asian subcontinent that grow these teas. Honest Tea is highly respectful of everything that it puts on its label in terms of content. You can attach a very high sense of purpose to what is a very simple product or service, but you better be true to that sense of purpose.
