...in such a graceless age...

Business books are full of stuff about how the Customer is King. How we live in an unprecedented time of Customer Power. How we can always move our business to another provider if we don't get what we want, when we want it, and how we want it.

Oh yeah?

I've been thinking about that from the Customer's side of the equation and it's not always the case. Yes, there are always substitutes, but they're substitutes--not the real thing. And the "real thing" is sometimes owned by people who know they have the "real thing" and don't let you forget it.

Mitchell's First Law of Economics states: "when they have it, and you need it, they can do anything they want to you." So while it may be true that I'm King, I'm also a Serf to entities who might WANT my business, but don't NEED it.

From there, all sorts of counter-intuitive things happen--and the "Customer is King" model can collapse. I was taught that you always treat the customer with respect and take the "high road" in any communications. But I have also been treated rudely by suppliers--"vendors" that allegedly see me as the Customer and therefore the main source of their livelihood.

And here's where my teaching failed me--as an individual Customer I do NOT provide any supplier their livelihood--only a piece of it. And if that supplier believes "the view is not worth the climb" (as said by my ex-boss @ Tumi) they can tell me to jump in the pond. I'm no longer King, but instead a Serf.

The challenge for us is to remember that Customers (plural) make our lives possible, and without them we're candidates for Unemployment, or Irrelevance. And while it's true we can tell anybody to Pound Sand (when I was in retail I was told I could tell one customer a year to stuff it), it's not a sound business practice in a market as small as ours.

We all need to remember that Customers are indeed King--and that the King of Kingdom A today might be King of Kingdom B tomorrow--it's a bad idea to mess with any King even if you think they're a Serf...


Pete

When 1+1=<2

Last week there was not one, but TWO market shows in Manhattan. The New York Incentive, Rewards, Recognition, Bar Mitzvah, and Smoker was at the New York Hilton, and ASI held a confab at the Javits center. Two shows, with two very different goals, but a common challenge.

We're all trying to figure out how to access what everyone agrees is the largest market in the country while not being able to see that many "buyers" face-to-face. Allegedly there are more "buyers" on the island of Manhattan than anywhere else on Earth. But most of them decided coming across (up/down/etc.) town wasn't in their interest. And with 150 Brands trying to sell the business, only 70 or so determined that coming to the show was in THEIR interest. But some believe that the show was a modest success, an improvement (or at least not a step back) as compared to last year.

Meanwhile, across town, ASI held what was described to me as a "smallish, but enthusiastic" show. The expectations were modest (2000 attendees, which they attained) and there was a limited number of exhibitors. For a first effort (which supposedly will change dates next year to March) I guess it was a modest success.

Lessee--largest market on Earth, and "modest success" is what we settle for. Nice.

Perhaps "modest" is as much as we can hope for. Travel to Manhattan is expensive, and challenging. Working with the unions in NY is like being an extra on an episode of The Sopranos. And apparently we still haven't found the compelling reason to get all those "buyers" out of their offices. Instead, they vote with their feet and stay away, in droves.

As an exhibitor at the NYIRR, BM&S I cannot settle for "modest success". I paid way too much for that. I heard there were buyers there, but they managed to miss us--probably because of the "Customer Deflection Device" (a 3 foot by 3 foot post that was 18 inches outside our booth), but also because the "crowd" was large only by the Theory of Relativity--take a hotel ballroom (and not even the big ballroom), put 300 people in it and it looks crowded.

Perhaps it's time for us to give up on the Great White Whale that is the End-User. While there were people in the room, many of them were resellers. It's much "sexier" to drop names from the Fortune 100 but in the end most of us in the Branded world simply don't sell those companies directly. More than 90% of my business is with resellers--that's not uncommon with consumer durable goods companies. I'm tired of "investing" in Snipe Hunts to put us in front of End-Users--I want to invest in Snipe Hunts to be put in front of resellers.

My prediction is that if I "invest" money @ Promotions East, or at ASI's soiree I would make a much larger impact than by trying to find Albino Rhinos. I need to "fish where the fish are" and it appears that no trade show can bring us End-Users (as if we would want them anyway).

Stick a fork in me on this stuff--I'm done...


Pete