Years ago I was heavily involved in the surfing
industry.
And it was on such a mighty boom, it seamed
everything with a surf logo on it seemed to
turn to gold.
As an example, I remember talking to a menswear
retailer in the most remote “you’ve never heard
of it” hick country town with a population of
like zero calling me on a day he’d received
a dozen $200 quiksilver jackets saying he’d
sold all of them out of the box before he’d
even had a chance to hang them on a rack
It was the halcyon years in the surf biz and
it went on for years…but inevitably it came to
an end.
The market got mature and instead of the pie
growing it started shrinking.
What was interesting though was the business’s
that kept on like they were still in the boom
years – blind to what was happening with the
change and viciously defending their old out
moved business practices.
Stagnant, too afraid to learn or do anything
different.
Sadly through lack of evolution, many of these
business’s simply died out.
Like a forgotten pile of wind blown dinosaur bones crumbling in the sand dunes.
Today in different business’s and markets I often
see the same patterns
Business owners and sales people hopelessly
attached to the memory of when things were
going well
letting it blind them to the reality that if
things aren’t working or giving you the results
you want – you have to do something different
As Jack Welsh so elegantly put it a few years ago…
“when the rate of change outside the organisation
exceeds the rate of change within the organisation
the end is in sight”
What’s worse is the energy it takes to vigorously
defend poor performance could easily be channeled
to learning something new.
If you look to companies like coke and apple who
forever stay relevant to their market, you’ll see
this common denominator.
And as business people and sales people alike we
need to be mindful of this not just to evolve but
to survive.
Take care of yourselves and the ones you love…
John Blake
