Cross-pitality
Jan 26, 2009 Finding the Next Customer
The secret to discovering (or creating) your next set of customers.
In honor of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Ox, characterized by a spirit of helping others, comes the subject of how to maximize customer impact. The question of where to learn lessons that will drive revenue growth based on meeting the needs of current customers is only the beginning. There has been so much said and done about delighting everyone we touch and creating fans, raving, rabid, and loyal.
But that’s not the hardest challenge.
The conversations I hear these days have to do with the NEXT customers—where will they come from? Once we’ve captured the loyalty of our current customers, where do we look for the next bunch of people who will connect themselves to what we have to offer?
How do you mine the unknown?
Let’s dedicate this discussion to the hospitality industry, an easy way to illustrate the concept of Cross-pitality, the newly-minted term for borrowing great practices from one industry and implanting them in our own.
The questions sound like these: “What will it take to attract more young professionals to our hotels? How can we sell more tickets to NFL games to Hispanics? In a down economy, how can we revamp our sweet spot to include cost-conscious consumers to our restaurant guest profile? What are the best ways to create a great live concert experience for the 20-somethings?
What we know for sure is that the new groups of customers won’t necessarily act like our traditional customer base. Parents with cell phones don’t look for the same thing in a gadget as their kids do.
The answer is Cross-pitality, the discipline of cutting and pasting elements from something that is already a big hit in one industry and piloting them in our own.
Cross-pitality has been the secret behind luring the grab-and-go customers buying potato salad at the grocery store deli into our eateries based on mastering the art of convenience; the trick that shifted the focus at an oil company from viscosity to “the waiting room experience” (think Jiffy Lube); the competitive approach that combined the concepts of just-in-time and time-shared resources and traditional car rental to create Zipcar, a concept that attracts a new demographic group (with different needs and buying patterns) to the car rental industry.
How does Cross-pitality work?
First, cross-pitality is a discipline, not a magic trick. It’s not simply a matter of appliquing a technique or approach onto our businesses. Just because polenta sells well and Starbucks sold coffee well does not mean that Starbucks’ foray into polenta sales was a hit (it wasn’t.)
You have to start with the mind set that expertise in selling the same stuff we currently have to different people will require understanding of these questions:
- What makes us BELIEVE that this new group of potential customers is a good prospect for our company?
- What are these new people CURRENTLY DOING OR PURCHASING that could lead them to want to buy from us?
- What types of experiences from OTHER INDUSTRIES (like fantastic e-commerce, smooth queuing, retail, design) appeal to our target group?
- How are the people in the new target group DIFFERENT from our current customers? Will we have to do things differently or offer new things to gain street cred with the new group?
- What will our NEW SWEET SPOT have to be to capture the loyalty with these new people?
- How can we create a rapid prototype or simple MODEL TO TEST AND TWEAK OUR HUNCHES?
The NFL teams looking to attract new demographic groups as fans can become experts at tracking consumer data on leisure activities, consumer purchases, top brand affiliations. Airport hotels with slow check-in procedures can look at the best of the rental car capabilities for pre-registering guests in the shuttle.
Remember, some of these hybrids won’t work. Dodo birds couldn’t fly.
But, when you’re stuck with flat sales and need to chart a path toward a new customer base, it’s all about the discipline of Cross-pitality.
How can you find out who your NEXT loyal customer base might be? Make it your first Chinese New Year’s resolution to find out.
Tags: finding new customers
2009: What Do You See Out There?
Jan 21, 2009 Strategic Planning
Welcome to 2009. The year of uncertainty. A time when people are feeling betrayed by the economic models and equations and forecasting that had given us our sense of security.
What Do You See Out There That Lets You Know it’s Monday?
A boy, looking out the window for signs of the future.
It’s the beginning of a new era as we swear in a President of the United States who was, just a few months ago, a long shot. As our world gets more uncertain, the desire to know the future remains constant: every business leader I meet greets me with the question, “What is your prediction for business for 2009?”
They want to know specifics about the stock market, about oil prices, about purchasing patterns, about global commerce. What they really seem to be asking is, “how can we avoid being blindsided? Which emerging forces should we be tracking right now to lead our companies toward a more certain and thriving future?”
It struck me that the skills that are required for businesses to thrive are less about the knowledge of one particular fact, or about keeping our eyes on one particular competitor. By definition, all of those measures are defined by what is, what was, or by what has always been.
The skills that are required for uncertain times should be driven less by facts and more by sensitivity and rapid response. The better approach for changing times should focus more on sensitivity to trends, the discipline of being prepared for adaptation, and the processes that lead to nimbleness.
The questions should be: “What am I noticing that could lead to change? Which factors might lead my company to extinction? Which factors open the window of opportunity to beat the odds, capitalize on the trends, gain momentum in the market, drive sales, and set our company on a path to growth? What can I learn from other industries that have faced these issues to improve my chances at success?”
We need to interpret differently.
Easier said than done?
Not necessarily. It’s a matter of focus.
When we focus all of our business processes and strategic planning efforts on absolutes and predictions, we sometimes make the assumption that double digit growth will come from taking a spreadsheet of 2008 and hitting: “multiply by 1.10″ and convincing ourselves that we’re all set for 2009.
Better to initiate the discipline of training ourselves and our co-workers to start to read the signals of what’s changing in our business environment, instilling a sense of urgency for considering how those shifts could affect our business, and pouncing on the chances to adapt to the changing environment.
Most experienced people see change coming. They are like the elephants before the tsunami who felt the tremors way before the storm. But if all of our measures are geared toward events that have happened, all of our measures will miss what’s to come. On the other hand, if we synthesize our gut sense of what the signals all mean, we can have a better starting point for responsiveness.
How can we become companies that know how to read signals, interpret, and take action?
I’m reminded of a scene from years ago, when my friend’s 4 year old son was standing at the window, looking out at the neighborhood at the beginning of the day. He looked out for a long time, and finally turned around and said, “Dad, just what is it about what you’re seeing out there that lets you know it’s Monday?”
What signs and signals do you see out there and what do you think your “Monday” is?