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 Return to Free Articles & Tools Index Lemonade, Autos, Dishwashers ... God Bless America August 2009 v2.0 The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the new Chairman of General Motors has tasked the management team with regaining top market share. There is data that says that market share as a strategy may be egotistical and silly. (See: Myth of Market Share) I hope it works for him, but I think that I hear Toyota breathing down his neck by focusing on well-built product that people actually want rather than an overblown dealer network with price cutting as the key tactic. (And the guy in the cheap suit shouts: ROCK BOTTOM PRICES!) Perhaps the new “shareholders”—the government—will get them on track. I opened the dishwasher door—which I’m sure has a cloaking device installed because my wife and kids can’t seem to find it—and it fell down and hit me in the shin. “Aw shucks”, I said (sure I did…) and then saw that the springs had broken. Quick…it’s 1980; what would you do? You’d spend 3 hours on the phone (an analog phone with a cord) and 2 hours driving around to find a Frigidaire dealer with the part, or you’d call a repair person. This particularly evening, within 3 minutes of muttering “aw shucks”, I entered the model number into Google, whipped out my credit card and for $12.50 had a new part in the mail. How cool is the internet!! Now I’ve got an extra 5 hours to Twitter! Whole Foods is changing their product mix because the CEO went on a diet. He decided that they were selling too much “junk” in their stores. I actually admire this guy—John Mackey—but it is pretty interesting evidence that the personal whims of a CEO tremendously influence business strategy. If you are a CEO, be careful that your personal bias doesn’t negatively impact your business strategy. It is best to have people around you who will call you out on issues of that nature. I believe that Mackey has been a good CEO, but I guess the “Buy one tofu and get a free Twinkie” campaign wasn’t working well. I’m not sure where he is going with this, but questioning how you have executed towards your vision is a healthy thing to do. My oldest son works part-time at a large, national retailer to supplement the income from his full time job. (It is the only way he can afford to snowboard 60 day a year.) He spent his entire last shift marking down shoes by 1 cent. I’ll bet that paid off… Sounds like a market-share strategy, doesn’t it? The service in this chain is so poor that if they actually greeted one customer and got him the $75 pair of shoes that he wanted, they could have avoided marking down 7,500 pairs of shoes. I was invited to a Rotary Club meeting the other day. I had never been to one. They sang “God Bless America”, recited the National Anthem and a guy told a joke that wasn’t entirely politically correct, but damn, it was funny! Pride and candor… there ought to be more of both. I hope that you had a great summer! As we come out of the recession, are you prepared to prosper? |
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