Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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The Age of the Customer

Stardate 10920: The Force is with the customer

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– Earth, Stardate 8511 (The Age of the Seller)

Once upon a time, in a galaxy that today must seem far, far away, sellers controlled all information about their products, services, and innovations. Consequently, customers learned what they needed to know from salespeople, who traveled far and wide dispensing information to, and collecting sales from, grateful and beholden customers.

If one had observed such a meeting, the customer would have nodded his head in wonderment as the salesperson revealed the virtual magic that was his product.

And in this land, the Force – control and availability of information – was with the seller.

– Earth, Stardate 10920 (The Age of the Customer) [Continue Reading]

What’s Love Got To Do With You And Your Small Business?

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In her second-most-popular song, Tina Turner sang, “What’s love got to do with it?” Out here in the Main Street marketplace, the answer is a lot.

Indeed, love is the reason people start businesses. We love to make and sell things: shoes, tires, hamburgers, cars, soap, computers, bread, air conditioners – you get the picture. You love your business; I love my business. Starting and running a business is a love story.

Yes, I know. Sometimes our businesses are not easy to love. In fact, our business is often like our teenagers: You may not always like it, but you always love it. Which is a good thing, because if you didn’t love your business you wouldn’t come back the day after it gave you the worst day of your life.

But love can also be a problem. Is it possible to love your business too much? As business owners, we know how to fall in love with our businesses, but we usually don’t know how and when to fall out of love with it. Here’s a great American love story that went wrong: [Continue Reading]

When The UGC Says “Nu-uh,” You’ve Gotta Problem

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Once upon a time, but not that long ago, a brand message could be successful even if it was close to a work of fiction. 

Created by Madison Avenue wordsmiths, copy for an ad or brochure was crafted to manipulate and motivate using puffery, a legal term referring to acceptable marketing exaggeration. And most of the time it worked. In fact, generations of consumers allowed themselves to be manipulated by puffery that became part of the soundtrack of our lives. Here are three Memory Lane examples:

“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.”

“Put a tiger in your tank.”

“The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Here’s a local example: “Largest inventory in the tri-state area.”

Since the release of the Internet for commercial use in 1993, the 10,000-year-old Age of the Seller paradigm has shifted in favor of the Age of the Customer. The primary differentiator between the two Ages is control of the information, which your customer now co-owns, including the truth about your products, services, and marketplace behavior. This customer control is derived in part from something called User-Generated Content, or UGC. [Continue Reading]

A Solid Gold Gift From Customers: “Follow Me Home”

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First, let’s establish two maxims: one classic, one new.

Classic: The cardinal rule of customer acquisition – it’s not your customer’s job to keep your business top-of-mind, it’s yours.

New: Every year your online footprint – website, social media, etc. – become less of a destination and more of a distribution center. As a small business, you have to develop a strategy that doesn’t depend upon prospects and customers returning to your locations every time they need/want something from you.

It’s easier to keep a customer than find a new one – everybody knows that. The bad news is, with all of the mega-corp algorithms, online competitors, and cyber-clutter, keeping the attention of even our most loyal patrons is getting harder every day. But here’s the good news: For every example of how technology makes business more complicated, there is a corresponding tool or application that increases efficiency and productivity. Even for small businesses. [Continue Reading]

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]

Age of the Customer Prospecting Rules for the Age of the Pandemic

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Since 1993, control of the three major elements of your customer relationships – product, information, and buying decision – has shifted from your business to your customer. This marketplace transition is, by definition, a Biblical proportion paradigm shift from the original, 10,000-year-old Age of the Seller, to the new Age of the Customer.

This shift has created many disruptions across the marketplace, but none more than to the discipline of professional selling. More specifically, the element that has been disrupted most is business-to-business prospecting.

If your sales effort isn’t getting the job done, it’s probably not because your sales team isn’t working hard enough or has forgotten how to close – a process that has not been disrupted. It’s because the rules of prospecting have been turned upside-down. Here are four facets to this prospecting shift: [Continue Reading]

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