Close the Gap

I had the opportunity to work with Chris Hanks, Director - Terry College of Business - University of Georgia, this past week.  Chris has created one of the best Entrepreneur Programs in the country and is working to develop the best new minds in the business world.  I was blown away by the ideas, the concepts for business models, and the services that were being brought to life and could see in the eyes of the students the desire to make millions of dollars.

For this event I was a judge for an elevator pitch competition for the MBA candidates.  It was eerie to be back in the hallowed halls I once wandered myself as a student.  I didn’t mind being older, but there was a sense of “what would I have become if I had the knowledge then that I have now”.  I could see myself up at the front of the class as a student and I cringed knowing what they needed to know.  For all the great ideas that were tumbled out before us in 60 second speeches, there was an element that was missed.

I come from a background of sales and retail.  That’s my bias.  It comes from that place where the customer and the deal meet.  I understand that there is a critical point where things are changing and in the end I am going to have to change my views.  The internet, networking pathways, viral marketing, and emerging future trends are all moving the dynamics of business beyond the brick and mortar stores we see today.  With that said, I can easily see that almost all of the businesses pitched are missing the direct communication of the product or service to the customer.

Before I start getting emails telling me all about elevator pitches and what they mean, I had the chance to ask questions after the pitch to clarify the statements and get a better idea of what the students were asking vendor capitalists to invest in.  Take it easy readers.  I wouldn’t make a leap from a 60 second pitch to a full blown critique of a business.

I was struck by the lack of any business having a store front and how that simple change in strategy is a clear indication of where the next generation of business owners is going to move.  This is not to say that some of the groups didn’t need the traditional businesses to sell to.  In fact, their products and services were dependent on having the traditional business owner buy from them or have them sell the products on store shelves.  There was, however, no one willing to have a retail shop of their own.

I have pushed and pulled this through the filters of my brain for days.  Do we need stores in the community to sell things?  Is it possible to have businesses totally free from rented spaces and still grow?  Will the human need for face-to-face contact be eliminated?  If you spend enough time on anything, there begins to be a fuzzy logic that can make the ridiculous seem correct.  I got a bit overwhelmed and decided to go eat.

I went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant.  The food was good, the presentation was pleasing, and I was satisfied when I was done and paid the bill.  In this example, someone had to make and sell the plate I ate from, the chair I sat on, and the glass I drank from.  What I saw at the University of Georgia was similar to all the businesses that made this restaurant work.  Without the restaurant running well, there is a lot of other businesses that go under.

Where is the desire of the students to be on the front line and see the customers?  Have things become so disconnected that we are creating new ways to avoid each other?   This is the same question that has been bounced around since the phone was invented.

The true problem is easy to see if you look at your hand.  I was speaking to a group of franchisees a few days ago.  I held up my hand, spread my fingers and a told them to look at the distance between my thumb and my little finger.  There is a gap between each finger leading all the way from thumb to pinky.  The thumb represented them as the franchisee.  The next finger was their General Manager.  The next finger was the Manager, then the front line employee, and then the pinky was the customer.  The gap between them and the customer, although not far, was far enough for any message they wanted to get across to be muddled and confused.

You can have the owner and the General Manager be on the same page and the rest of the people pulled away.  This is a weak link if all you are doing is touching the thumb to the first finger.  You could add the Manager and the crew, but you are still weak.  It isn’t until you have a clear message from all parts of the sales process that you have strength.  Put all the fingers together and you have a fist.

How can you have a strong business model if you are not a part of the sale to the customer?  How many businesses fail, not because they did something wrong, but because they were dependent on someone else selling their stuff?  Can you change the businesses of all these students and have a model that helps the retail outlets sell merchandise?  Yes.  Can you have the businesses open retail outlets to sell directly to customers and take the message directly to the customer?  Yes.

What I see is that there is a focus for new businesses on not having to be bothered by the general public.  That is where the next business is going to succeed.

Closing the gap is where the next billionaire will be made.

This entry was posted on 17. October 2009 at 22:29 and is filed under Marketing, Customer Service, Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Making Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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