Re-Invent Your Biz...or your Biz Buzzz

The famous formula, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got,” does not apply during tough economic times. What I mean is, “When the going gets tough, the weak get going and the tough figure out how to do it differently.”

In a TIME.com article from late 2008, Detroit's Fall Gives Power to Rival Dixie, a South Carolina author, John Jeter, was quoted...

…southerners ask who the hypocrites really are. "When the textile industry went down in the South and we were accused of being behind the times, we didn't ask for a bailout — we just had to reinvent ourselves," says John Jeter, a South Carolina author whose family owns a small chain of auto parts stores and whose new novel, The Plunder Room, examines the modern southern character.

John is right--when the going gets tough, you vent to get it out of your system, then you figure out how to market your services or your business in a different way. It's not so much that you do something entirely different as it is that you keep a close watch on your market (and the economy in-general) and you adapt. A-D-A-P-T, as in “Don’t just sit there—do something”.

Here's the Biz Buzzz: For an example of how one well-recognized company did this, let’s go back a few decades. 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. Let’s look at Tupperware®. What a great way to market the product—go to potential users’ homes and have a party! Let them invite all of their closest friends, pay for it all, coordinate everything and you pay them with…yes, your product. Clever! That's innovation.

Let’s move up a bit to the 80s and 90s. Hey! What happened? The market changed. It really, really changed! Moms are not working at home anymore. Moms are working, too, now, just like the dads. Moms are hip and on the move and looking to make everything easier and faster.

Smart Tupperware—they reached deep into that innovation bucket and did a complete redesign of the old useful products and even changed some of the names. Now you had brightly colored lids and containers that doubled up as mixing bowls. Now, in addition to the party sales, you could find the products online! Smart, very smart.

Let’s keep going—Hey, the busy moms who once found value in Tupperware now had no use for it; they were using disposable—Ahem!--single use containers. Another innovation moment—reusable, long-lasting containers are better for the environment. Headlines! All responsible moms and dads now use Tupperware, instead of the use ‘em-and-toss ‘em containers.

Do you see it, folks? Same business, same products essentially, but with different designs, new products in the existing lines, new colors, new names, new buying opportunities.

Your market changes, you read your market and you speak with your market differently. Re-invent your biz. This is a way that you can give even the smallest of small businesses a facelift, and even have change left over to buy that Spin ‘N Save™ Salad Spinner you’ve been wanting.