Annoyance or Opportunity?
Take the case of a pizza parlor. The owner has created a menu of items that are loved by customers. Buoyed by that success, she works at creating procurement and production processes that help reduce costs so the business will be more profitable. But how should the owner respond if customers increasingly ask for different toppings or different crust options than what is offered by the shop? No matter what business is being considered, if you look at emerging customer requests as an annoyance rather than an opportunity, you just might have passed into the danger zone known as Day 2.
Day 1 to Day 2: Stasis, Irrelevance, Painful Decline, Followed by Death
Day 2, on the other hand, speaks to companies that make assumptions about what customers want based on past success. As such, they are in danger of becoming disconnected from them. Even for small businesses, taking your eye off of the customer to focus on improving processes and cutting costs, for example, can be a costly mistake.
As Bezos outlined in his 2016 Letter to Shareholders, Day 2 is not a good place for a business to be. “Day 2 is stasis,” he wrote. “Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1."
Learn and Be Curious. Maintaining a healthy level of curiosity is critical for keeping up with changing customer preferences and other external opportunities. Business operators can learn from customers, vendors, employees, and delivery drivers alike. They can also keep an eye on larger trends through participation in local business groups, relevant trade associations, or subscribing to industry publications.
Are Right, a Lot. What Bezos means by this is that leaders are experienced and knowledgeable. They have put in the work and should have confidence that they will make astute business decisions for the most part, based on current information, such as knowledge garnered from being curious.
Bias for Action. By maintaining an active curiosity, and with the confidence of experience and business knowledge, operators can move confidently to take advantage of new opportunities. One of the critical advantages of small businesses is that they can be nimble and institute changes much more quickly than larger companies, making moves to delight customers while building loyalty in the process.
It is important to remember that the 14 leadership principles are all linked. They all support making good on the primary principle of customer obsession and keeping the company in Day 1 mode. If you feel like your business is getting stale, or if you or your staff start looking at customer requests as inconveniences rather than opportunities, it might be worth your while to take a closer look at the 14 leadership principles and put some of them to work.
