The tyranny of a defective biscuit & how is it hurting your sales
I like biscuits with tea ( a habit formed after I swithched to tea without sugar …..to compensate for sugar ) , especially Digestive by Britannia- I ordered a carton ( 24 packs ) of them from Amazon a couple of months back .
To my utter disgust , the biscuits tasted very bad ( I checked the manufacturing date , it was ok ) — unlike any digestive biscuit in the past . I thought of returning it , but could not do so . We thought that the problem might lie with one pack , but every pack tasted the same .
Since this is the first thing I take every morning with tea , I am faced with dilemma every day — should I throw it away ( I can’t as I have invested in them ) , give it to someone or live with them till they are exhausted ( a dreadful proposition ) .
Now a days , my mood in the morning is set by biscuits — if I happen to eat these defective biscuits , it sets in a repulsive feeling .The problem is that since there are still 16 packs of them left , I shudder at the thought of living with them till next year.
Anyway , what has this got to do with your organization’s sales performance ?
The same kind of tyranny ( dictionary meaning of tyranny is ……something in your life that limits your freedom to do things the way you want to ) holds organizations thinking too …they remain trapped in the tyranny of old ideas , technology , beliefs and so on .
For example :
We are an online company and can’t go offline ( and vice versa)
We are a Telecom company and can’t be making cars
We only deal in cash ….
We only make products for kids ..
You get the idea ……..this kind of thinking is pervasive in organizations. Let me give you some examples …
One organization I know was saddled with with defective packaging due to printer’s fault , but management thought of consuming these as they had invested in them — despite repeated requests by sales team and channel partners , they stuck with the defective packs — you must have guessed what happened next ? the product flopped in the market .
Other organization I know never used to listen to to the sales’ team feedback about higher prices or pretty much anything — and invariably they used to reduce the prices after the product was launched (after they had a lack lustre response) , but in every case it was too late .
A lot of times car companies continue with the same model for years with very little or cosmetic changes as they have invested in these models and they wonder why their sales are falling ….
My point is this — many a times organizations think they have invested so much of time , money , brains in a particular project or idea - and refuse to change despite the evidence or feedback to the contrary and pay the price in terms of lower sales or reduced market share .
Let us not be trapped by the tyranny of the mind ….
Cheers