Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Archives for January 2022

Storytelling Gave Birth To The Marketplace

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Cogito ergo sum. French philosopher Rene Descartes proposed this idea in 1637, which translates to “I think, therefore I am.” Certainly, the power of abstract thought is what separates humans from other animals.

Anthropologists now believe Homo sapiens succeeded, unlike other members of the genus Homo, Neanderthals, and Cro-Magnon for example, because their (our) brains had a greater capacity for speech and language. Today Descartes might modify his philosophy to “I think and speak, therefore I am.”

In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith proposed the written word as one of the three great human inventions; the other two are money and mathematics. But long before humans were writing we were telling stories. And these stories – told, memorized, and retold over millennia – became the headwaters of human development. And here in the third decade of the 21st century, humans still love to tell stories almost as much as we love to listen to them.

Another thing that’s older than writing is the marketplace. Long before Madison Avenue ad copy, merchants were verbalizing the value and benefits of their wares. Clearly, early business storytelling was the origin of modern selling skills.  [Continue Reading]

The “Customer? What Customer Syndrome?” Part II

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Last week you were introduced to a dangerous trend in the marketplace, which I’ve named the “Customer? What Customer? Syndrome,” or CWCS. This condition is found in companies that are more concerned with competitors than with customers.

You learned that Level One CWCS infects employees who have received little or no training about the direct link between customers and their employer’s success and, therefore, their paychecks. Level One is dangerous but not hopeless because those so afflicted can be cured with better hiring and training.

Now let’s talk about Level Two CWCS, which only afflicts managers. Level Two is more troubling and organizationally more devastating because it occurs at the top, where strategic decisions are made.  [Continue Reading]

The “Customer? What Customer Syndrome?” Part I

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Here’s a classic business maxim that was an article of faith for generations: “It’s essential to know at all times what your competition is doing, or you might lose old accounts and new prospects.”

Do you still worry about the competition? In the Age of the Customer, an obsession with the competition can result in an unfortunate and dangerous condition I call the “Customer? What Customer?” Syndrome, or CWCS for short.

A company has CWCS when it’s more likely to ask, “What’s my competition doing?” than the much more appropriate questions, “What do my customers want?” and “What are my customers’ expectations?”

There are two levels of CWCS. In this column, we’ll focus on Level I. [Continue Reading]

How Much Is Call Reluctance Costing You?

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Professional salespeople are the most important players in the marketplace. 

The justification for my position springs from a classic business maxim: Nothing happens until somebody makes a sale.

But professional selling is as hard as it is important – especially at the B2B level. Plus, customer expectations in The Age of the Customer have increased the degree of difficulty in an unprecedented way. So, the last thing salespeople need is to be fighting their own demons – to not be able to get out of their own way.

For example, here are a few selling scenarios that, unfortunately, occur every day: [Continue Reading]

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