I hate it when that happens...

As a card-carrying member of AARP I have first-hand knowledge of the whole "you're obsolete" thing. Whether it's my increasing discomfort with technology (slow, but insidious), or commiserating with friends about aches and pains, I get it--I'm the past, and others are the future.

But today has been a milestone. It seems like every time I turn around, I'm hearing that my view of the market, or the very market itself, is out of touch and destined for the scrap heap. Geez, and I was just getting the hang of the "email" thing...

There are multiple entities attempting to fill the void left by Amazon's departure from the fulfillment business. I've heard that my model of selling customers is no longer important--what is important is to be listed with master distribution and let them include me amongst the thousands of items in a given program.

Otherwise, I'm an Endangered Species-soon to be irrelevant and left behind as the Prosperity Express moves out to sea.

Then, I read an article I found on the Google News home page. The title was ominous--"Forget Green Stamps: The New Loyalty Marketing". The article presents a new way of thinking--not to just incentivize the most important clients, but EVERY client through the use of CRM and other analysis. OK, I'm down with that, but then came the hammer:

New loyalty platforms work in the now by giving customers incremental incentives (discounts, coupons, special offers, inside information) on a continual basis, encouraging them to make regular purchases — instead of requiring customers to collect points in hopes of collecting an incentive in the future.

Whoa there, Sparky. You're talking about my market there--you know, the one where I and others derive our living? I felt my lumbago acting up, right after my gallbladder started pulsing.

And both of these "new" ideas were presented with the bravado of all "new" ideas--that we're right, you're wrong, and if you persist in clinging to your ways you will be as useful as a submarine with screen doors. Change now or perish. Follow us. Trust us.

Was I this way 20 years ago? Did I walk up to established markets and say "Here I am--make way or else I'll use the Force to destroy you"? God I hope not.

My favorite saying of all time is "it depends". There's no doubt that both of these concepts can find a place under our Big Tent. But nothing is the "do-all and be-all"--nothing. I'm reminded of a line attributed to Dwight Eisenhower--"if everything is a high priority, then nothing is". You cannot make every customer the most important. Mr. Pareto is still right.

So today I got old. Real old. I'm completely off base on how to find a way to be relevant to the Amazon-replacement wannabes, and the entire loyalty business is about to go to Hell in a handbasket.

Don't touch my Social Security...


Pete