After a meeting with my client - I emailed the following:
Great meeting with you today, and the lunch too ...... I keep insisting that your sat on a gold mine, be careful of the competitors it won’t be long mate.....please refer to the below – which I plan to put as an article because every business needs a backstory – please note I won’t include your details in the article.
Happy reading.
Building a backstory.
Despite the many examples, our previous business experiences or case studies we may discuss I want you to appreciate bridging the gap between what people settle for and what they really want, and understanding the principles of creating what people can’t resist and competitors cant copy.
The backstory is the elements beyond the product/service itself that make it magnetic, these are usually unseen often overlooked factors including infrastructure, ecosystem and business design, that are essential to creating demand.
There are so many stories of businesses getting this right, we often hear of Steve Jobs bridging together a touch screen, mobile device, safari web browsing (I recall on my blackberry years ago how there was no point browsing the web on that device) personalising you own screen, Siri and so much more, and the competition was blown out the water, yet Motorolla, Nokia, HTC and Blackberry were dominating the market place – but were just off track.
Other comparisons could include the McDonalds and the rise of Gourmet Burger and Five Guys – yet Burger King and Wimpy didn’t thrive.
Sony losing millions developing an electronic reading device that nobody purchased and Amazon years later (not even a technology making company) thriving with their concept of the Kindle. The stories of companies getting it right offers several intriguing lessons about demand, it’s a fascinating reminder of the sheer complexity of most significant breakthroughs, even those that are seemingly simple. Please think about the amount of time it took Reed Hastings to create the original Netflix system – a movie posted to your home, the system to work throughout America and the customer receiving the movie and the packaging involved to ensure that it didn’t break through the postal systems. A second lesson is the interdependence that exists between demand and the backstory element of infrastructure. The demand for convenient movies by mail that Netflix created and satisfied couldn’t exist until the infrastructure of DVD’s and DVD players was in place. The demand of social media that Facebook and Twitter creates and satisfies couldn’t exist until the Internet and mobile internet ready devices existed. Infrastructure and customer demand grow hand in hand, each depends on the other and the unfolding development of each other over time determines the long term shape and health of your business. Finally and perhaps most important the dependence of the entire structure of demand to an individual customer, Apple understood what consumers wanted from a mobile device like apps, personalisation, touch screen, music and so on – Apple has the ability to sense and provide what it’s customers want and will want in years to come because in the end someone in the family will decide what upgrade or device they want with the mobile contract.
So what does this mean for !$£%&* – I want you to build a complete backstory what you don’t see can make or break your service, its not enough to have 90% of the backstory in place – until the backstory is truly complete demand simply doesn’t happen, connect all the dots needed to fix the hassles, dreams, wants and needs of the customer, and make it magnetic don’t stop developing your service until it’s absolutely irresistible, generating excitement and conversation – it’s not the first to market that wins – it’s the first to create and capture the emotional space in the market.
I know you can get there......... hopefully without the kick up the arse...... perfection is impossible – good enough is fine
Speak soon ,
Rylan