Times change, people change and wants and needs sometimes change too. To have longevity in business, you need to be able to adapt to changes.
Here’s a question for you: can you adapt your product, service, marketing and/or business model to meet customer needs?
Things will never go 100% as planned in business. A lot of the time 90% doesn’t go as planned. A key to survival is to be able to change and adapt your business quickly and skillfully. Many of today’s most successful businesses didn’t start out providing the product or service that has been the key to their current day success.
Take the product Lysol. It is a household name in disinfecting and has been around for decades. But before it was disinfecting household surfaces, it was marketed to women as a way to eliminate odors from their “hello kitty”- yes that’s right, Lysol was first sold as a douche (and as a form of contraception, nonetheless). After women realized that wasn’t the kind of tingling they wanted in their nether-regions, Lysol was adapted to become one of the most successful household products around. Don’t believe me? Here is an actual ad from a movie magazine from the early 1940s.
From Modern Screen Magazine, November 1946
So, if your products and services are causing unwanted feelings in or from your customers, see what you can do to change. Maybe you can tweak your marketing, your customer service or other aspects of your business to make it more relevant to your customer base. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box (tasteless pun totally intended) and adapt to new market conditions.
