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    • Wed Jan 28, 2009

    The Fine Art of Creative Destruction

    In the early 1900s an Austrian economist by the name of Joseph Schumpeter wrote that the lifeblood of capitalism was “creative destruction” and that the rising and falling of companies unleashed innovation that in the end made the economy stronger.

    The economic recession facing business right now is amplified by the fact that it is causing people to rethink their buying priorities and re-justify what they decide is a need and what is a luxury.

    For many small businesses, well suited to quickly change course, this presents an opportunity and the necessity to reevaluate many of the marketing assets that may have served you well in the past.

    Creative destruction of your message

    Benefits are what the prospect says they are – in other words, what the customer buys is really determined by them. Right now you may want to re-chart your core messages around the ultimate savings, increased value and low risk benefits you can quantify and less on the “won’t you look swell, live the good life” messages.

    Creative destruction of your offerings

    As people start doing without or finding ways to get more from what they already have, your market for your core offerings may indeed be shrinking. Now is the time reevaluate ways to create entirely new offerings, pricing models, payment models, configurations, and add-on services.

    For many products the writing’s long been on the wall – the recession simply sped up the time table. The web and cloud offerings, sometimes free or very low cost, have forever changed the way people get things done and pay for products and services. Now is the time to start thinking about how you can take advantage of free, web-based and open source models.

    Creative destruction of your industry

    Ask yourself this question – what’s the one thing that nobody is willing to do in my industry that would involve revolutionary thinking. How could we do what our competitors do with little or no overhead? How could we guarantee and charge for results only? How could we virtualize everything we do? How could we use crowdsourcing to produce a far better widget?

    Bold time call for bold thinking!

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    Posted by: John Jantsch on Jan 28, 09 | 7:07 am
    Category: Small Business Marketing | Tags:

    Comments
    « HP Introduces Small Business Marketing Tools | Home | Social Media Hierarchy Revisted »
    • This is a really exceptional post, John. Great ideas and excellent questions. Your ending statement reminds me of one of my good friend's motto for everything when we were in college: "Bold, decisive moves!"
    • Mr. Jantsch - I follow your tweets and get your blog posts fed. You've always got great things to share. Thanks very much!

      Re: "The Fine Art of Creative Destruction" Outstanding thoughts! What stood out to me was "what’s the one thing that nobody is willing to do in my industry that would involve revolutionary thinking?" - the million dollar question. I've discussed the idea of (and I am sure you have) being authentic in what you do, finding ways to communicate that to people and connecting with the right types of people - narrowing the scope of your target market. I think you mentioned in one of your other articles that "people do business with people," people they can trust and share beliefs with. So, my thinking is that one of the things business owners can bring to the table that nobody else can bring is themselves.
    • I really enjoyed this post! Most of what you hear in the news or read online regarding the recession and small business is incredibly negative. I love your take on the recession as an opportunity for innovation - get better, faster, leaner. Creativity requires constraint, but I think we've all let the onslaught of bad news zap our creative thinking. Let's take a new approach and do business better than ever, possibly the way we should have from the beginning.
    • John Jantsch
      @Rick - great comment and bringing themselves is the surest way to attract the right kind of customers.
    • John Jantsch
      @Dee - yes doom and gloom make for good headlines I guess, but I think real entrepreneurs need change - change is good!
    • Excellent advice, in the best or worst of times. It's always constructive to re-examine marketing efforts and fine-tune according to current and anticipated business/economic landscapes.

      In tough times such as these, there are many opportunities to rise above the crowd and distinguish a product/service/brand with some revolutionary thinking.
    • "tough times" are a good time to take stock about things that we can change instead of just letting business life "happen" to us. Make the decision to survive and as you recommend, look for ways that we can clean up our offering instead of volunteering to go down the tubes.
    • There are huge problems and obstacles in being a one-person business, but in this economy the flexibility of independence is going to be a huge huge benefit.

      Changing strategy for my business is easy compared with, say, General Motors. They need to turn the Queen Mary ... I'm turning a little kayak.
    • What a great idea for a product launch! What is the one thing related to your product, market, client that is not being done? Also, not a bad idea for a survey question?
    • I really like this post. Some great ideas.
      Thx
      MoneyAside.com
    • Spot on post. Thanks!
    • You have really caught me on this one. Well said John. The series of questions you asked made me think about what I can offer more to customers?
    • Eric Purcell in Cleveland
      Absolutley fantastic blog post! I think every person in the United States including the President should internalize what "Creative Destruction" means. To many people are pointing fingers and begging for handouts these days. Innovation will drive us out of this recession--not government bailouts. The timing of this post couldn't be better considering our current economic situation. Keep up the good work!
    • Great post! Every CEO, Owner, and salesperson should read this Blog, great insight.
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