Innovative Concepts

Behavior by Price

Ever pour out a $250 bottle of wine because you cannot finish it?  How about a $8 bottle?  We might find a way to preserve the expensive wine and yet the less expensive vintage we are willing to give a sip to the flowers as we clean-up a picnic.  

I was just in a Primark Store on Oxford Street in London last night and there were clothes and hangers strewn all over the place.  Every rack and display screamed discount pricing.  It looked like a gang of young boys had been asked to do the clean-up before being allowed to play video games.  Employees using large dust brooms collected all the hangers on the floor and piled them in the middle of the floor.  People would pull items off the rack and if it did not fit they made a limited attempt to put it back or just dropped it.  Lines were everywhere.  Next door was a high-end boutique that was the model of organization and the prices reflected the order. 

The prices and values you attach to our services and programs often determine the way they are valued by our customers.

Not A Moment of Thought

This morning, I have been watching two Mallard drakes chase each other around the wetland area near our house.  One duck is clearly obsesed with chasing another one from the pond, forcing his nemesis into the deep reeds.  All the while, the two hens are being courted by a third duck that just arrived.  Had the dominate drake payed attention to the hens he had claimed then perhaps he may have not been usurped by a stealthy opportunist.

Typically, as a company grows larger it spends more money on market research and analysis of its competitors.  Numbers are sliced every conceivable way.  The more effort that is put into market research, the less innovation takes place and suddenly everyone is at a square dance responding to the same caller.  The real trick is to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit and chemistry.  If you dedicate yourself and your cause to fixing the problem that ultimately energized you to launch your enterprise, you are on track.

Are you giving your competitors a moment of thought and chasing them around the pond?  Are you staying focused on your purpose or distracted by those in your peripheral vision? 

Manipulation vs Trust

Here is an example of a campaign that is less transactional that some of the ones I noted in my Its About Trust post last week.  If you want a vote you still needs to be a Facebook fan of Crate & Barrel (the hook still exists which leading practices says is manipulative) but Crate & Barrel is committed to giving the money regardless of the number of fans and votes.  In an ideal world, Crate & Barrel would open the voting to everyone and trust that those that appreciated their generosity would become fans.  If Zappos is willing to trust that customers will not abuse the free return shipping policy (which could be a significant cost) then why not allow everyone who believes in the causes you are supporting to vote.  Some of these voters will become fans based on their own motivation and the retention rate of these fans (the stickiness of their relationship) will be quantifiable higher than those who opted in just for one purpose.

Manipulation works until you lose your leverage.  Trust works far longer and the rewards are much higher.