We live in a world of constant change.

 

The introduction and immediate acceptance of iPod, iPhone, iPad, Droid, Tivo, and other “events” significantly has altered the way we work and play. But what’s even more important is to recognize not the events or products themselves, but the solutions they provided.

 

Shift Happens!®

 

Remaining an agile competitor involves rethinking what products are, how they should be made and sold, who buys them, and how much buyers should pay for them.

 

Consider the "cellphone war.”

 

Samsung took away the leadership from Motorola, which invented the cell phone in 1973. Then, Apple took it away from Samsung. But Nokia still sells more phones worldwide.

 

In mobile phone handsets, in Q3/2009, Nokia was the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones, with a global device market share of 37.8 percent, followed by Samsung (21 percent), LG Electronics (11 percent), Sony Ericsson (4.9 percent) and Motorola (4.7 percent). These manufacturers accounted for over 80 percent of all mobile phones sold at that time.

 

Yet all anyone hears about these days are iPhones and Droids. Today, Apple’s share of the worldwide smart phone market is 16.1 percent. In the U.S., the Droid is ahead of Apple and the Blackberry is the leader with 36 percent of the market.

 

The most important fact, however, is that only 23 percent of mobile customers in the U.S. have a smart phone, according to the first-quarter data from the Nielsen Company. Clearly, this represents one of the largest opportunities in technology today.

 

No one talks about Blackberry, Nokia, or Samsung so public relations, you see, is one of the greatest secrets to any businesses’ success.

 

With all this in mind, your goal should be to build strategic relationships with customers; stable, long-term relationships that can survive constant marketplace change.

 

The means by which companies can accomplish this is by selling solutions to individual customer’s problems, rather than selling products that the customer then has to fashion into solutions.

 

Providing solutions creates relationships.

 

And those relationships can and should survive for long periods of time. That’s because these relationships are based on the inevitable dependencies and interactions that arise when producer and customer come to understand one another well enough to create solutions together.

 

At the same time, the possibility for continuous “solution product” generations — solutions that evolve over time in step with the evolution of the customer’s problems — is also created.

 

The iPod is a perfect example. It is a not solution to just the way you play music. It is a solution to the way you play AND purchase music. And now the boundaries are blurred because the iPhone can store and play music just like an iPod. Clearly the relationship between music and communication is becoming consolidated.

 

While Apple most often is credited with attractive product design and the technology of true plug-and-play, the genius of iPod is in the iTunes Music Store that sells one song at a time, instead of an entire album. And that single song can be stored, played, and “burned” so that users get to create their own playlist for their individual mood, event, etc.  You are now your own DJ.

 

When iPod began playing video, Apple formed a strategic alliance with Disney, which owns the ABC and ESPN networks as well as their signature entertainment products, to provide video content. At the time, this was ground breaking. Apple and Disney effectively created a new “pay per view” solution for people on the go that changed the way we view television.

 

We can look back now and understand how groundbreaking those shifts in thinking and new alliances were. Success may be leveraged through these alliances: 1+1=3.

 

But here is the key: Selling solutions enables a company to adopt pricing and marketing strategies on the basis of customer-perceived value. Solutions are far more valuable to customers than generic packages of goods, services, and information that then have to be forced into solutions, on the customer’s “nickel.” 
 
What customers have always wanted, but have not been able to buy from mass-market producers, are solutions. They have had to settle for mere products. Ideas like the iPod platforms mean customers do not have to settle. And, as iPod has proved, they will pay for that.

Service Required

 

Of course, not all of you sell hard goods.

 

Many of you are in the service business. But regardless of what you offer, service and quality — not price — continue to be the strongest competitive advantages. For your organization to survive you must constantly improve the customer’s experience.

 

According to surveys from Stanford University and Carnegie Institute of technology, only 15 percent of success in business is due to technical knowledge while 85 percent is due to people skills, including sales, support and customer service - all the areas that touch the customer.

 

So, how do you improve and enhance the customer’s experience?

 

Here are a few ideas that I have observed from innovative organizations: 
 
The business card for one resort’s general manager doubles as a free room offers for select guests. Now that’s really a selling solution.

 

Hyatt requires their management to take the place of bellmen, cooks, maids, and other staff workers for a day of training. This role reversal helps both management and staff what the other levels in the organization deal with each day.

 

The Mill Casino and Hotel in North Bend Oregon reproduced works of art on the back of room keys. The key also mentions that reprints are available for sale in the gift shop.

 

Are you old enough to recall when gas station attendants checked the oil in your car and washed the windshield? Well Win-River Casino wants to make sure that their guests feel at home, so they wash every car’s windshield and leave a note.

 

How about the long lines and the frustrated guests waiting in them… for anything? What would happen if you delivered hot chocolate, a piece of candy, a small bag of pretzels, while they waited?

 

Lexus dealers often wash a car and fill the tank with gas after a service visit. While the cost of gas now may prohibit this practice there is no reason that any dealership can’t return the car washed and vacuumed.

 

Each of us can think of what we would like if we were our own customers:

 

Be Nimble.

 

Be Quick.

 

Be Responsive.

 

Today solutions must be offered in real time.

 

Remember, it can be as simple as using the resources you have, just in different ways. It is often simply transferring resources with the simple objective of stimulating new business and retaining existing customers. 
 
Here are my “secrets” to your success:

 

Share the dream of your entrepreneurial vision.

 

Bring joy to the workplace.

 

Encourage others to think like owners.

 

Owners should think like customers.

 

Make sure that you remain in contact with your customers, employees, and suppliers.

 

Listen more than you talk.

 

Say you’re sorry, and mean it.

 

Say thank you, and believe it.

Opportunities are there for all of us if we simply look for them.