Who gives a rip what business you’re in?
Posted by Scott Dunn on April 28, 2008
It’s important to have at least a general idea of what business you’re in, so you’ll know where to look for it in the yellow pages. But if you want to grow and prosper, you should dig deeper. What do people need and what are they buying? If you don’t know this, your “business” can pass you by.
My elevator speech is “I am a marketing guy and I teach marketing and advertising at Georgia State. I help clients find out ‘who cares?’ what they do and act accordingly.”
Let’s put it this way—what are you selling, as opposed to what are they buying? Some examples:
- Black and Decker sells little machines that goes round and round and they call them drills. But people don’t need a drill. They need holes.
- Barnes & Noble says— right on their logo—they are booksellers. But people don’t eat books, they read them. B&N is in the reading business, and they make it easy and enjoyable for people to come in and read. They’ll buy later.
- Ask a professor what business your college is in. He’ll say, “Education.” But what they hope to get is educated alumni—the kind that gives money back.
- Do you like Starbucks Coffee? It ranks 21st. But when was the last time you said, “Let’s meet at Starbucks”? Are they in the coffee—or the meeting business?
Free yourself from definition tyranny. Join the customer in his never-ending quest to find a better use for your product.
George Lemmond
April 29, 2008 at 8:39 pm
George, I love this. It’s SO fundamental and yet one of the top five things business folks seem to lose sight of. In marketing healthcare, for example, we have to remember that nobody really wants to be in a hospital. They don’t like to think about ICU, aren’t all that interested in how stealth technology works in an operating room. They already expect us to be cutting edge (pardon the pun). They expect clinical excellence. They expect to have healthcare. Traditional healthcare marketing has missed the mark in many ways by becoming so engrossed in all the gazillion dollar equipment and technology. That’s important sure — but primarily because it helps build trust. Trust and peace of mind are the things that drive healthcare choices. And trust begins — not with the 64 slice CT — but with how they FEEL about the providers. Do they trust them?
All the talk lately about the slow but inevitable demise of network television news made me remember a time when our parents and grandparents stopped everything at 6 p.m. every evening to watch their favorite news show (there were only three television stations — period) — NOT for the news. But for the anchors. They had a relationship with Ken, the guy on Channel 3 who was in their living rooms every night for an hour. They talked about him like they knew him. The networks weren’t selling news — and they got that right, right out of the box. They were selling relationships through their anchors. I know — an obscure example, especially since most blog readers probably don’t remember a time when there wasn’t cable, a hundred channels to choose from or what life was like when cartoons were on ONLY on Saturday mornings.
April 30, 2008 at 10:55 am
So—what business is a hospital really in? (Yes, they’re in a business.) I’d say, forget about “healing.” How about coming down from on high and say they are a “Friend in Need.” That what people want. (They’ll settle for a miracle.) Maybe that would be more appropriate for a hospice, but an equal one-to-one relationship would be welcome.
May 2, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Of course we’re in business. And you bet it’s not about the healing. I’m saying you’re right on. We’re in the trust business. Okay, I guess I can stomach the “friend in need” business. Traditional healthcare/hospital marketing is based on the technology, the healing, as you say. I agree w/your original post wholeheartedly. That those elements (technology, healing) are givens. They’re NOT what drive the choices of our patients/customers. Traditional approaches in healthcare marketing (and coffee marketing, too!) are miles off the target. I love the notion that a marketer has to scrape away all the clutter and noise to find the real nugget of what their business is. It’s so simple and still so rare in its execution. Keep ‘em coming, George.