Most companies are successful because of a specific product line or service that their customers need and enjoy. But then companies want to be bigger, better and more profitable. This is fine as long as they stick to what they do well and which enabled them to be successful in the first place.
As an example, in a former life I was a racehorse trainer. One of my favorite tracks growing up was Rockingham Park, located in southern New Hampshire. Nicknamed the Saratoga of New England, it was a beautiful little track and in its heyday featured some of racing’s great horses, jockeys and trainers. Seabiscuit even graced the once proud track.
Sadly the track burned down in 1980. A group bought the track and re-built it. They actually did a nice job and the track re-opened in 1984 with a nice clubhouse and facilities. Sadly the ownership was not satisfied with racing and thought that slot machines and/or a casino would be the key to big money. So they let the product go down hill. The nice clubhouse became a smokey, smelly mess. They failed to reach an agreement with horsemen and the track ended racing. They had charity gambling and simulcasting as the plant got more and more disgusting. The casino legislation the owners sought for so long would not pass and finally the facility will close this month.
The moral of the story? As the title says: Dance with the one that brought you. Had Rockingham’s owners stuck to racing and trying to develop and improve the product, rather than seeking bigger and better things they would have been successful and still operating. Ironically, their competition, Suffolk Downs in Boston closed so there would’ve has zero competition today. The shame is the area around the track was a big vacation spot, one of the biggest in New Hampshire. Now all that’s there is the remnants of a once great track which soon will be torn down and developed. Just what the world needs, more retail…
Bottom line: although it’s fine to grow and change and add to your core offerings, remember what got you there to begin with. Never lose sight of that and you will be successful.
I was reading a business article and on the side, an ad caught my eye. It was for an electronic device that looked quite handy and unique. So as most marketeers would like, I clicked on it and went to the website. Well much to my chagrin, you have to give your email address in order to get on this site. So, I thought to myself, let me get this straight you will not let me get into your website to give you money without my email address. Kind of foolish, as I have to give my email address at checkout time anyway. So it got me to thinking, what is the number one complaint about e-commerce sites? Simple, making the process harder than it has to be. We have long ago discovered that you need to have things like one page checkout. Having to go through multiple pages in order to checkout is a no-no, and people will abandon their orders.
So again I come back to the site I mentioned (I will not mention their name), they won’t even let me into their site. This email box slaps me in the face and basically says to me “give me your email address, I’m going to spam you otherwise we don’t want your business“. Wow, unbelievable. In this day and age where companies are fighting for the almighty dollar, this company has the nerve to require you to give your email address before even seeing their offerings. They want you to join, so they can market to you, an ill-conceived premise. After all, I can go to Amazon who has over 200 million products available.
Whatever this eCommerce company was paying for the ads I clicked on, they just threw away the money. While the product was unique they are not the only one selling it. I went to Google to search on the product and found it available on many websites. Amazon as I suspected had the item, I can purchase with one click and it’ll be at my house in two days as I have Amazon Prime.
Lesson learned: trying to be a little too cute in making people give you their email before they even see your site is a sure way to lose business and eventually put yourself out of business. Amazon has a loyal following as they realized early on, how to please customers. People will actually even pay a bit more sometimes as they know they’ll get their items in a couple of days and if they have any issues Amazon will take care of it.
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