Edition 481 – A Changing Marketplace
What’s changing in your profession, in the way that it’s delivered or produced by you, or the way that it’s consumed by your customers, that could be impacting your business, positively, or negatively?
I’ve loved music forever. A little known fact is that I was once a trombone player, back in the days when I wore short pants and long socks. I loved playing, but hated practising, so when high school beckoned, I walked away from that part of my life.
These days, I listen to music mostly via Spotify, the online, streaming music service. Occasionally, at home, the radio goes on during the day and, over dinner, the CDs might come out.
In a cafe recently, I heard a song, which a search on the Shazam app identified as “Messy” by Lola Young. It’s a bit potty mouthed, but the lyrics are interesting to listen to, and the song has a nice beat. I downloaded the song and found that not only was it released in 2024, but that the song had been downloaded 621 million times since last year. To put that in perspective, “Comfortably Numb”, the epic Pink Floyd song from the equally epic album “The Wall” is the third most downloaded Pink Floyd song at 707 million downloads. Except, that album was released in 1979, and the song was released as a single in 1980. So, at least 45 years ago!
Newsagents have changed from one of the main outlets for accessing media to, these days, a combination of your local casino, with those horrid scratch lottery tickets, and a crap junk shop.
Hardware stores, the likes of which you once walked into to purchase a single bolt, or washer, have been replaced, mostly, by Bunnings – the big box retailer that sells you 20 bolts or 10 washers – with the leftovers eventually hiding themselves on your garage shelf or inside your shed, which you can never find, and thus, eventually, sends you back to buy another batch when you next need it.
Car finance, once the domain of the banks, finance companies, credit unions or building societies (remember the building society?), are now also provided by a financial services arm of the manufacturer. Rather than advertise the purchase price of the car, those advertisements talk about the monthly payment required to put you behind the wheel of the three pointed star, or Bavaria’s best. The fact these are, what I call, tricky finance deals, with large balloon payments, which virtually force you back into the same showroom, three years down the track, so that you’re not upside down on the finance payout, are driven by the manufacturer, where the profits from finance can outstrip that from making the car in the first place.
The world of business is changing quickly. Yet. it seems that, for some businesses, their owners are stuck in a time warp. Old technology. Outdated systems. Inflexible workplace arrangements. These businesses fail to see the gentle erosion in their revenues, or their profit margins, until it’s too late, and they’ve ventured into the Revenue Death Zone.
What do you take for granted in your business, in terms of:
- How you go about doing business?
- How your clients consume your product or service?
- The ageing of your client base.
- Whether or not you are replenishing your client base and if so, how?
This Week’s Tip
“If revenues have flatlined in your business, that’s a warning,
that a deterioration of up to 20% of your income is imminent..”