Once again there are more store closings being reported in the national media as well as regular reports of mega companies like Toy r Us going bankrupt and closing their doors. Sadly, as business consultants, we see this far more frequently than most people do. We have also discovered what is the most significant and most detrimental mistake that all of these companies make and also how to prevent it.
For years I was always baffled how giant companies have just gone away and been left in only our memories. Companies such as Blockbuster, Radioshack, Polaroid, and now Payless Shoes, all had major success and where household names at one point. Now they are all but forgotten. I became obsessed with this over the years and read everything I could get my hands on written about it, including the book Good To Great (one of my Favorites). What I found that almost every single company suffered from and failed because of , was so simple that it didn’t seem possible. The truth is most 100% of these failures (and those that we see daily around us) can be traced back to a failure to adapt, change, and accurately predict future changes in the marketplace and customer buying habits.
Classic Examples
The most classic examples of not being able to adapt and foresee the change ahead are sure to be Blockbuster and Toys R Us. Blockbuster was the most dominant entertainment business in the world for more than a decade and people would wait in line forever to try and rent the newest movies on VHS and DVD, overpay for popcorn and treats to eat with the movie, and gladly paid massive late penalty fees if we didn’t return the movie on time. And we loved it! This giant was taken out for the most part because of Netflix. Blockbuster even had a chance to buy Netflix and didn’t out of stubbornness and thinking that they could compete and change their business model to rival Netflix. And when they didn’t, Netflix added streaming movies and we know the rest of the story. Same thing with Toys R Us. They were the store that we begged our parents to take us to and fantasized about while reading their newspaper flyers. Knowing that people were making a shift to online sales, they did a deal with Amazon to sell their toys for them instead of spending the money to do it on their own by adding a new e-commerce division of the business. Thus, making them obsolete years down the road. That decision basically was one of the major deals that created what is now know today as “Fulfilled by Amazon”. It worked Great for the latter, not so much for the former.
So What Can You Do?
Becasue I spent so much time on this in my career, I used these key learnings to help create a solution to this issue. This is what was the inspiration of the Business Health Check™. The Business Health Check™ was created to help you find areas where you can make more money in your business, where you are losing money and may not even know it, and other revenue generating ideas that can help you be more successful in the future taking into consideration the changes in the market and the consumer base. We are so confident in this product making you more successful and making your business more money that we guarantee its success. Visit our website or contact us for more information at 952-582-4669.
