Adapting To Market Dynamics

The other day, I wrote about the idea of Hyper Convenience and how customers now not only expect high-quality goods and services, but they want it five minutes ago.

There was some irony in that email that was entirely unintentional.

ActiveCampaign cut it off.  You didn’t get the end of it.

I had a half dozen people send me an email and ask about it.  The comments ranged from just a simple, “Hey man, the end of that email is missing”, to someone suggesting I’d intentionally created an open loop and one person outright asked what lesson I was trying to pass along by dropping the ending.

The truth is, it was just a glitch.  LOL.

So for those of you who want to read the ending, click here.

One of the things about the ending is that I mention the fact that you need to meet your prospects and customers where they are at, but it’s ultimately, as the business owner, up to you to decide how you do that.

What does that mean though?

Without question, the world is moving towards a more hyper convenience mindset.

As I discussed the other day, I want my bespoke Mexican takeaway meal delivered to my house in under 20 minutes and it better still be hot when it arrives.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to offer that to me.

It’s your business and you can do whatever you want.

Your ideal customer might be someone who values a slow burn relationship and is happy to wait for the quality outcome.  Maybe you offer a premium service that isn’t geared towards that kind of “I want it now” style of customer.

Just be careful… Many people overestimate the quality of their prospects and audience – they assign them their own aspirational views.

“My customers are more sophisticated than that, they want quality from me but are willing to pay a premium and be patient for me to get it just right.”

You hear that a lot.

And much of the time, it’s just not true.

That’s what the business owner wants to believe about their business.

But what you want isn’t always reality.

I would say that for most of us normal people, we’re going to have to adapt to these increasing demands.  We’re going to have to be able to deliver faster and higher quality stuff on a more regular basis.

Or…

At least we’re going to have to create the illusion of that.

This is really about process and structure.  I’m starting to think that the days of these long-running sequence funnels where you walk customers through your product set when you want them to buy is coming to an end.

The idea of opening and closing products to create scarcity and drive urgency to buy is something that works really well, but what happens between those opened and closed periods?

You build a waiting list and then ramp up the hype when you choose to open, but is that really going to continue to work?

My feeling is that these kinds of tactics are not going to work for too much longer.  We’re going to need to figure out evergreen strategies for these kinds of products and services because our customers are going to want access when they want it.

This impacts me directly and is something I’ve been thinking about a lot the last few days.

With Authority Matrix, my plan was to open it up quarterly or every four months, close it, work with the customers, make changes to the content and then re-open it.

But I’m starting to wonder if that’s not the right strategy going forward.

In fact, it runs counter to one of my core principles which is to, “Make it easy for the customer to give you their money.”

Think about your business.  What are you doing that makes it difficult for your customers to consume your products and services in a way that suits their increasing need for immediate results?

The secret to figuring this out is to put yourself in the shoes of the customer today and think about what else they could buy instead of your product.  Are they able to find quick and easy alternatives?  Can you compete with those alternatives?

Hyper Convenience is a big change that’s coming, it’s time for you to think about how to meet it head on in your business.

Leave a Comment