In previous posts I’ve said that one of the deliverables of great leadership is wildly enthusiastic customers. I’ve even had the gall to suggest you can’t be considered a great leader unless you create wildly enthusiastic customers. While there’s considerable resistance in some quarters to that idea, I’ve yet find anyone who thinks it’s a bad idea to have wildly enthusiastic customers. So, in a series of posts, I’m going to explore the topic of creating wildly enthusiastic customers.
Peter Drucker once said, “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” And he was right. But he said that a long time ago and things have changed since then. One of the most profound changes has occurred in the dynamic of supply and demand. When Dr. Drucker first defined the purpose of a business, life was characterized by scarcity. Today, the dominant characteristic of life (at least in the U.S) is abundance. Ridiculous abundance. Think about this:
“The United States spends more on trash bags than ninety other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our waste cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half of the world’s nations.” (Polly LaBarre - Fast Company, March 2003)
In most of the developed world, the supply of almost everything exceeds demand. Think about any product or service you might want to buy – do you have more choices or fewer choices today compared with twenty years ago?
To be continued ...
