The Journey of a thousand miles...
Greetings from "sunny" Arizona, where the rain is measured in inches and the temperatures are more apropos to Detroit than to Phoenix. We're here to enjoy the balmy weather and to attend the 40th IMRA Marketing Conference. Golf on Sunday was a survival contest--and 14 holes was about all the fun I could stand.
And the weather is a perfect metaphor for the current state of affairs at IMRA--stormy, with periods of heavy rain and bone-chilling cold. Everywhere we look, we see storm clouds--Amazon, gift cards, customers with no money, suppliers with less commitment to the channel, reps with payroll to meet and fewer resources to make it with.
But even after 4 hours in the wind and rain, a few minutes in a hot shower will bring feeling back to the extremities and reinvigorate the spirit. So it was here. We got a chance to commiserate, sure--but the whining quotient is far less than it might have been. Those of us who remain standing understand that while things are tough, it's not fatal. Yet.
Everyone always says "we have to change our way of thinking" and "we need to embrace change". Well that's a hell of a lot easier to say than it is to do, and the last thing most of us need right now is something out of a Successories catalog. What we REALLY need is innovation and collaboration, to stop thinking of how to compete with some of these new models and figure out how to outwit them.
The Conference gives us that chance, although I think we didn't take advantage of it. Some believe that sharing is a sign of weakness, of letting "competition" take what little business exists. I consider that self-serving crap. Benjamin Franklin is more correct in 2010 than he was in 1776--"we must all hang together or certainly we will all hang separately".
Reps and suppliers are tied, blood on the wire. We can "like" it or "not like" it but it doesn't change the model. Until End-users choose to see us in large numbers we need both reps and resellers--and anyone who attempts to side-step the relationship creates friction that neither side needs just now.
IMRA has an opportunity--but the clock is ticking. The great American philosopher Yogi Berra once said "when you come to a fork in the road, take it". IMRA is approaching that fork--which way we go will in large part determine what the 41st Conference looks like, assuming there IS a 41st one.
More later...
Pete
posted by Pete Mitchell at 5:05 PM
1 Comments:
Aw, what the hell. I resisted for a good week!
Will take this as an opportunity for blatant promotion of the IMA Summit - another opportunity to innovate and collaborate.
As IMRA members, we are leery of the perceived "competition", but I maintain that our merchandise-based sector has much to learn from those SIGS that are selling the intangible (expertise) or products with litte discount if any (gift cards). We debate the right mix of skus or colors or pricing -- those are issues but are not THE issue. What place does merchandise hold in the big scheme of things? How do we bring value to our customers who can literally get our merchandise anywhere? Is our current business model sustainable? How could it be changed? Should it be changed?
The IMA Summit: Business Improvement Starts Here (in Baltimore Aug 2-4), will contain structured sessions that provide tools we can use to improve our businesses right now (negotiation, presentation skills, prospecting and follow-up, PR/self-promotion, etc.), but the Summit itself offers the chance to mingle formally or informally with all factions of our industry: to examine how the other "halves" do it. Whether we see other SIGS as competition or potential partners, how can it hurt to see our industry through another set of eyes? As a 30+ year veteran (ouch), it's hard to see past what I know anymore.
I can almost guarantee better weather in August in Baltimore than we had in AZ in March....and it might be just the right climate for that innovation and collaboration you're recommending.
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