There’s a storm of change in the air these days – nothing new there. But sometimes too much change can be … too much.  Consider Ford’s decision last year to all but get out of the sedan business in favor of selling more SUVs and pickups, except for Mustang and a “crossover” version of the Focus. Of course, you can’t compare loss of Taurus and Fusion to anything truly world shattering, such as the Red Sox losing the playoffs, but for a guy who cut at least some of his teeth on Ford cars, the news is disconcerting. Chevy fans also can start working up a tear or two, because the venerable Impala is on the way out, as well.
 
So why all the angst over a business decision?
 
Because for those of us who came of age in the post-war American car culture, Ford and Chevrolet were the brands we obsessed about most. They were the big sales guns and most families’ bread and butter choices. You could buy one with an AM radio or no radio at all, two doors or four, V-8 or six, standard shift or automatic, power steering and brakes, a heater and most assuredly whitewall tires (blackwalls were boring and for cheapskates). That’s about it. Sure, some folks purchased Plymouths and Dodges, my dad for one, but they were perennial also-rans despite Chrysler Corporation’s successful Forward Look designs launched in 1955 and brought into full flight beginning in '57.
 
My teenage bud I were smitten with cars – we liked them all, including the odd-looking Henry J driven by a neighbor who was pretty odd looking himself.  There were Pontiacs and Buicks, DeSotos and Chryslers, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs -- Packards and Studebakers, too, for a while.  But it was Fords that grabbed most of our attention, especially the white and pink ’55 Fairlane Crown Victoria owned by my friend’s older brother, the car with a distinctive chromed arch across the roof that was supposed to emulate the look of a fancy horse-drawn carriage.

“I can understand why a '55 pink and white Crown Vic would smite you,” my car nut friend Ron agreed recently as we swapped stories one morning during a diner-style two-eggs-over-easy breakfast at a local eatery. “It was so cool and oozed the glitz and promise of the 1950's – and by the way,” he proclaimed with the authority of a man who was there when the classic car thing began, “the darker pink was called Tropical Rose, the light pink, Coral Mist.” You gotta understand that we didn’t know Coral Mist from Lustful Red at fourteen and fifteen. We just wanted to drive THAT CAR and plotted to make it happen (vs. only sitting in the thing and listening to Chuck Berry on the radio, which best I recall would play without need of the keys).

After a while, we noticed that my bud’s brother took a nap most afternoons. But not before exhausting himself singing arias along with the hi-fi in his bedroom (another object of our envy) while the two of us snickered about his taste in music and waited on the screened porch for the guy to aria himself to sleep. Ten minutes after “all quiet” we had filched the keys and opened the doors to our dreams.

Not being complete and total dummies, we pushed the car back ‘til it stood in front of the house next door, where we could crank it up somewhat out of earshot.  However, a problem soon arose that would short-sheet our dream: the Crown Vic was equipped with a stick shift, the operation of which quickly became the object of much heated hilarity as we stalled and cursed and lurched our way right back where we’d started from, abandoned our quest, returned the keys to their hiding place and retreated to the porch to discuss the finer points of clutch technique and come up with excuses in case older brother had awakened and found us out (he hadn’t, and he didn’t).

Predictably, my first car was a ’55 Ford.  It was a seven-year-old Country Squire that had “wood” on the side.  It set me back $300 and was an essential tool for a delivery job I’d taken between college and the Army. To this day I can’t see a ’55 and not think of the old Squire and how my buddy and I spent time scheming up another shot at driving that pink and white tease of a car up and down the street.  As it was, we only got that one chance (he was pilot during our 40-foot run while I kibitzed from the passenger seat). And though I still prefer Fords over Chevrolets from that era, the truth is that more Chevys were sold in the mid to late ‘50s than Fords, including the stylish second-generation Bel Airs. 

  
During a neighborhood walk with friends several mornings ago, we got talking about Preston Tucker and his innovative automobile from the late 1940s. Thirty years ago, I had written a client speech on the subject, so went searching through basement files (the old paper kind) ‘til I found it. The subject seemed just as fresh today as it did back then.   

It was just after World War II when Preston Tucker, a former policeman, car salesman and engineer/tinkerer, grabbed the future by its collar and shook it. New cars hadn’t been produced since 1942, and the fresh-from-Detroit 1946 models were warmed-over prewar designs. Tucker, however, imagined something radically different, an innovative design that would turn heads and help build the fortune that had always seemed to elude him.  His vision of tomorrow’s automobile took shape in the barn back of his house in Michigan, which housed the Ypsilanti Machine & Tool Company where Tucker had designed (but never could bring to market) an armored car,  an innovative tank turret and a fighter plane.

He called his prototype the Tucker Torpedo for its daring new shape. It was a revolutionary car. A safe car. A fast car.  A fuel-efficient car.  A car that could stop on a dime.  A car that knocked your eyes out.  

The production model Tucker 48 was incredible, although toned down a bit from the prototype. Even so, nobody had ever seen (or imagined) anything this car shaped like the future. It was built low to the ground and featured a windshield wide as a picture window that was designed to pop out in a crash, saving the driver and passenger from popping it out with their heads. It had a third headlight in the center, which pivoted for a better view of the road as the car turned. The 6-cylinder engine, adapted from a helicopter engine, was in the back. It was fuel-injected and there was a double transaxle to drive the rear wheels. The Tucker 48 wasn't clunky looking like most other post-war cars. And wasn't slow, either; it could go 120 mph and had handling and endurance to match. A prototype Tucker ran around a test track for 24 hours and got 25 miles per gallon. When the car was rolled over at 90 mph during a test track run, the driver walked away from the wreck unscathed, and the car was driven away after one tire change. The windshield popped out, just as planned.

People loved the audacious Tucker Torpedo and wanted to buy them (priced at $2,000, when the average new car cost around $1,200). Crowds surrounded the car everywhere Tucker went. Over time, he raised enough money to put together the people and facility to manufacture and market the car, and although his future seemed assured, the Tucker was a failure. Preston Tucker's dream to produce the finest automobile ever made never got to spread its wings, partly because of his own business and financial limitations but also because of crushing political pressure said to have been engineered by the Big Three American auto manufacturers, who perceived the Torpedo as immediate threat to their future. Only fifty-one Tuckers were ever produced.

And second, physicians tend to be extraordinarily busy people entwined with the needs of their patients, research, teaching, etc.  And since they are not made of stone, it isn’t always easy for them to let go of their day’s work.  Clearly, some docs relax on the drive home, cocooned within their luxury automobile, while others wind down with a cocktail before dinner - or even a soothing cup of chamomile tea. But a surprising percentage of physicians turn to the piano for relaxation. Just placing their hands on the keys can have a cathartic effect.  And then the music takes them away.

What is there about a piano … especially a Steinway … that can move someone so profoundly? 

For the most part, it has to do with the touch and tone crafted into each instrument. A Steinway simply gives back more, reaches out and connects at a deeper level (people say) than other pianos that cost as much or more. Which makes what a doctor may experience while playing his Steinway at home not much different than what Lang Lang or Martha Argerich may experience onstage.  A concert performer’s experience occurs at a more rarified level, to be sure, but may be no less heartfelt. 

“It’s immersive -- and such good therapy,” one Steinway-playing physician told me.  

Where does this highly personal resonance between player and piano come from?

There are, of course, many design and manufacturing variables to consider in the creation of a Steinway.  But what it comes down to most is … wood … the care with which each piece is selected and the way in which all 12-thousand or so endlessly fussed over parts connect with one another and then speak to the player with a single voice.  The most shaded nuance, the most passionate fortissimo is given birth in a touch of the key and strike of the hammer, then is amplified in the piano’s soundboard heart and shaped by the massive maple rim that helps enrich every note.   

But it is here we must stop and return to the world and its worries.  For it is in that context that a Steinway rewards most eloquently, whether doctor, lawyer, corporate chief -- or even a blog writer.  It’s a great escape for busy minds and weary bodies … and so peaceful.

​Expensive?  Yes.  But for those who can afford it, worth every dime.

​As that same physician says, “It's such good therapy.”
​
TakeAway:  If your brand touches the heart and improves people's lives, there always will be demand for your product.

© 2016 by Brian E. Faulkner.  All rights reserved.

Tags: refuseniks, Joe Hollier, Light Phone, iPhone, flip phone, dumb phone, Republican presidential candidates, typewriter

Live long enough, I have discovered, and you will be up-to-date from time to time.  Even if you own (and use) an older-style cell phone, a flip phone – what’s disparagingly referred to these days as a “dumb” phone.

That’s me.   My phone may be stupid as a stopped clock, but now I’m finding that it’s as up-to-date as the day after tomorrow, thanks to revitalized dumb phone demand confirmed in no less august a publication than the Financial Times, whose stories are always … interesting.

Seems that one enterprising fellow has created a business out of meeting the needs of two kinds of folks: smart phone “refuseniks” like me plus people who have dived headlong into the ever-deeper, ever-connected digital pool and come up gasping for breath.  Yes, Joe Hollier’s new company, called Light Phone, offers an alternative product, a new dumb phone that you don’t have to dig out of your junk drawer.  His credit-card-sized device is as simple as a stump: no email, no online data connections, no beeping and blathering every time something “important” diverts your attention from something that’s really important, like getting work done, spending time with your family or watching the Republican presidential candidates destroy each other (and perhaps their party) in the latest debate.

As I have reported earlier in this blog, my kids have wished an iPhone on me for a long time.  And, so far at least, I have resisted their well-meaning imploring – all except my son, of course, who finagled an old flip phone from his mother when she finally got an iPhone to go with her iPad and her laptop.  But then again, my son and his family don’t even have cable TV.  Yikes!

The Financial Times article about Joe Hollier’s new dumb phone, which he cleverly positions as Your Phone Away From Phone,  provided some revealing information about a market that I knew in my stubborn old bones was lurking somewhere out there beneath the dash and flash of the latest, gotta-have-it-now-or-else-I’ll-die smart phones.

* 44-million basic phones were sold in 2015 (about 2% of the global market), probably to people like me or to users where high speed connections aren’t available.

* Nokia sells a dumb phone with a standby battery life of 38 days!

My dad resisted getting a cell phone ‘til the day he died.  When he needed to talk to one of us, he just reached for the old-style corded phone beside his "ejecto"-chair and hit speed dial.    I’m a lot like him, I realize more and more, so maybe my obstinate refusal to join the iPhone world (or its competitive equivalent) is no more than confirmation that this apple is falling a lot closer to the tree than I’ve dared consider.  

Wait!  I think I hear my dumb phone squalling (or whatever that whiny noise is that it makes). 
Gotta go! 
​
TakeAway:  There may be a viable market for technology left in the dust of the latest and greatest.  What about the typewriter?  The kind you don't need to plug in, of course.

Remember when all you had to do is make one call to Ma Bell to get your phone and its installation underway?  In short order, a guy (almost invariably a guy) showed up at your house and hooked up the phone to a jack he installed on the wall.  Then plugged in the phone he'd brought with him. It’s still that way, in part -- that is, if you have a simple residential setup and don’t expect too much.

But if you have a small business, it’s an entirely different proposition these days, especially if you’re blissfully unaware of the changes time has wrought in the phone business – even when it comes to the phone that sits on your desk, stays put and doesn’t fit in your pocket or purse, take pictures, track your whereabouts or have that super-smart (but clearly very tiny) young woman inside the thing answer most any question you care to come up with.  

The changes began in the early ‘80s, when the government broke ginormous AT&T Corporation into an array of regional Baby Bells.  That led to more competition – especially as the underpinnings of the communications business became so utterly transformed by digital technology over the next 20-plus years, vastly enlarging the competitive playing field and enabling an infinite variety of whiz-bang phone features.
    
Recently, I had the opportunity to help start a retail store (one reason why the frequency of my blog posts has decreased so much in the last few months).  We began with four blank walls and a carpeted floor, did some minor construction work, applied some paint and started inquiring about a phone system, which seemed relatively straightforward on the surface. But it turned out more like comparing apples and kumquats; they both grow on trees but there the similarity ends.

First up was Time Warner Cable, not one of my favorites.  However, the lady who represented them on the phone was delightful and well acquainted with her system’s many features.  She also was eager and efficient about giving me a quote, which I thought included the phones.  We also conversed with Vonage, who clearly did include the phones. The competitors' prices were similar, as were many operational features, which lulled me into thinking that they were more alike than not.  So we decided to go with TWC, arranged for installation and went about tackling other tasks.

It wasn’t long before the TWC tech showed up and hid himself away in our utility closet for a while, busily making sense of the jumble of wires and connectors the previous tenants had left behind.  When he was ready to go, he told me what our phone numbers were and how to access the Wi-Fi, after which he packed up his tools and got ready to hit the door.

“Where are the phones?” I asked in complete and total ignorance. 

“We don’t provide the phones.”

“What?!”

“We just connect the phone lines up to your system here.”

“WHAT?!”

“You’ve got to buy the phones from somebody else.”

He might well have told me that I had to materialize the phones out of thin air.

“And what about the wall jacks?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“You’ll have to call in an electrician to do that,” he said, climbing into his truck and heading off to lunch.  “Good luck!”

So we called in an electrician, who did a masterful job pulling bright blue wires from the utility closet through the walls to the two desks that were supposed to have phones on them. Then he, too, headed off into the lovely autumn weather, leaving the ends of the blue wires sticking out of the wall at both spots, with a small pile of wallboard dust on our just-cleaned carpet as if to prove that he’d been there and done something.

I never did get to talk to that guy, but I’m sure had I inquired about where the wall jacks were, he would have informed me in the matter-of-fact way that tech people sometimes talk to non-tech people that “We don’t do wall jacks.  You’ll have to call somebody else.”
I should have known.  So then I got busy Googling up an IT person who might consider installing two wall jacks in a tiny retail store.  And actually found one, who proved both helpful and instructive; he even straightened out some stuff in the utility closet that he declared hadn’t been done quite right by TWC.

Kazaam!  We were almost in business.

So I called the helpful TWC sales person with the pleasing manner and asked her how I’d missed that they didn’t supply the phones.

“Oh, a lot of people ask that,” she said. “You can get phones at the Big Box store if you like. We only provide the phone lines and the phone system – not the phone itself.”

That’s when it hit me that the features TWC sold as part of their “Business Class Phone” reside in their software, not in the instrument that sits on your desk.  I almost felt shamed to have missed that bit of information, but then again, isn’t it logical to assume that if your product is called Business Class Phone that you’d actually be INCLUDING one as part of the deal?
​
Apparently not.  You’re actually buying Business Class Software!  And I did, indeed, head across the street to Office Depot and buy a phone, which works just like TWC advertised.

Then I got thinking what would have transpired had the nice TWC sales lady communicated all that stuff up front? Would that have been a competitive advantage for her company? Would my experience have borne out the Marketable Truth© of their tagline (Enjoy Better)? Probably not – and to give Vonage credit (The Business of Better), they did tell me in advance that they didn’t provide the phone lines, only the phones themselves (plus their version of feature-laden software).

Of course, none of this confusion should rest on my broad shoulders, right?  Believe that and I’ve got a copier story to tell you, too … maybe next time!

Marketable Truth © by Brian E. Faulkner         Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

I was brought up short in the supermarket the other day by a bag of pretzels, which is not typically on my radar.  Last time I had a pretzel probably was some time in 1978.

But this bag of pretzels intrigued.  Yes, it had snappy packaging, done up in colors to attract the eye.   What was more intriguing, however – and more important in convincing me to stop for a closer look, was the product’s prominent positioning. 

The first word that caught my eye was “UNIQUE” – equal in weight to the product’s name: Splits.  A banner at the top of the bag proclaimed “The Original Split-Open Pretzel.” 

Since I’d never heard of a split-open pretzel and had no idea whether being split-open was a marketable pretzel attribute, I read on.  Further down the package, three prominent arrows pointed to a big pretzel, along with a few short lines of text for each benefit:

It’s abundantly clear from their key message that Unique Splits Pretzel Bakery of Reading, PA has decided that slightly bulging surfaces, grooves and tiny pockets of air buried in their pretzel would make them more crunchy and appealing.   True or not, they got my attention!  And the taste test later at home convinced me that they had a good pretzel, although the added value of the benefits they cited were lost on me, although I’m ready to admit that a pretzel aficionado may have picked up on them immediately.

The benefits don’t stop there.  The Splits package also proclaims that their product has more flavor, fewer ingredients (no sugars, malts, preservatives, colors, trans fats) … and smarter baking.

“The Spannuth Family started baking hard and soft pretzels back in the late 1800s,”according to their Web site and a blurb on the back of the package.  “The demand for our hard pretzels increased rapidly because of our ‘Unique’ baking process” that allowed the raw pretzel to “burst open,” creating bubbles and crevices that are “crispy, yet crunchy, and filled with flavor.”  Which is why they started calling them “Splits”. 

Splits come in multitudinous varieties, too: multi-grain, extra dark, unsalted, chocolate covered (yum!) and my future favorite, Bacon Cheddar Flavor Shocked “Shells” (they’re hollow, which makes them more like a potato chip than a pretzel).

If the pretzel itself isn’t the non plus ultra of pretzels (at least for me), the company’s positioning and benefits presentation -- their product story -- is close to perfect and certainly approach “UNIQUE”.  

TakeAway:  Don’t be hesitant about stepping forward with your product benefits – especially if they clearly set your offering apart from competitors. 

Content © 2015 by Brian E. Faulkner   

Bad News.  It knocks on all our doors eventually -- the kind that arrives unexpectedly, like a sunny day thunderclap.  Perhaps a fast moving tornado rips without warning through your neighborhood, leaving incomprehensible destruction behind.  Or a fire destroys your house.

For the staff, members and fans of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, bad news came during the early morning hours of February 12, 2014 when a sinkhole opened up under its Skydome display area.  Security camera footage shows something like a million dollars worth of prized Corvettes tumbling thirty feet into a 40 x 60-foot chasm where they were crushed by tons of dirt, rocks, concrete and other Corvettes.  Fortunately, three were not damaged beyond repair.  Five of the iconic sports cars, however, were crushed nearly flat and can’t be fixed.  Eighteen months later, the hole has been filled in, and the museum awaits restoration of the final damaged Corvette.

The fascinating twist in all of this is that museum attendance has increased significantly since those dark days two winters ago as Corvette aficionados in far greater numbers stop by to see the hole and inspect the damaged cars on display.  The sinkhole has been filled in and the floor repaired.  And the museum staff, who work among seemingly endless displays created around the Corvette theme, remain optimistic that publicity generated by the event will keep fans coming.

“People just really enjoy hearing the story and like seeing the damage,” spokesperson Katie Frassinelli said, in a story reported by Associated Press.  “I guess it’s the rubberneck effect.”

We all get that.  It borders on shocking to see violent damage inflicted on a Corvette or some other finely crafted machine that’s been whacked or crushed or flooded – like the rows of new Volkswagens destroyed in last week’s Tianjin, China explosion and fire. 

But what I don’t get is how little story about the sinkhole event there is on the Corvette Museum’s Web site, which, given all the notoriety and increased attendance, should be featured more prominently – or at least be directly accessible from the site’s landing page.  I had to hunt and hunt and hunt before I found mention of the sinkhole ‘Vettes and even sat patiently through a breathlessly paced video that I thought might contain footage of the cars tumbling toward their fate – or the sinkhole’s after effects; it did not. 

To their credit, the museum has embraced what at first must have seemed like a nightmare and has turned it into a plus.  They just need to let the world know about it more effectively – front and center.  They need more story, because as no less a personage than The Donald has said,

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

TakeAway:  Shine up that bad apple and put it to work for your business.

Content © by Brian Faulkner

The news that Google was creating a new entity to contain itself plus the company’s more speculative ventures came as welcome news to the investment community today -- and to armchair business strategists, as well.   Google will become a subsidiary of Alphabet (www.abc.xyz), which also will hold (and develop) a portfolio of products aimed squarely at the future. 

As the illustration shows, Google's vision allows it to continue marketing and growing its search business, YouTube, Google AdSense and other endeavors while Alphabet concentrates on creating leading edge opportunities, thus giving the company a mix of separately managed business units in different stages of development.  It's all very much in keeping with what Peter Drucker declared some time ago:  

                “Business has only two functions: marketing and innovation.”

Google’s move is not surprising given a 30-something friend’s recent hiring by Google after an exhaustive assessment process to determine whether he’d be a good cultural fit.   Apparently he is, because three weeks into the new job he’s off and running, although I don’t know exactly what he’s doing.  It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that he’s working on some high-potential Alphabet project given his unusual mix of talents and experience: a coder who can discern and dissect client problems with an eye toward solving them in a practical, profitable way.  He's also a talented graphic artist and has a mind that allows him to imagine products into being and help make them successful. 

I am reminded, in thinking about Google’s fascinating strategic move, of a quote by Bob Waterman in the landmark 1980s book In Search of Excellence -- something like “The best businesses are always in the process of becoming something new.”  I may not be remembering the quote precisely, but you get the idea.   It’s a perfect description of what Google is up to.

“As Sergey (Brin) and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago,” says Google co-founder Larry Page in his introduction to Alphabet’s new Web site, ‘Google is not a conventional company’ …  we did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time.  Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android.  And we haven’t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about … (because) in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant ..."

Of course, the wags on Twitter are all about making fun of the novel company name, such as calling the new campus “Alphabet City”.  Or check out this would-be headline: “Google restructures under ‘Alphabet.’ - Corp headquarters to move to Sesame Street.  Bert & Ernie to be co-COOs.”

Yuk it up all you want.  To my way of thinking, Google has scored big with its new structure, and at the end of market trading today, investors appear to have agreed -- on an otherwise down day for stocks.  With the Dow having fallen more than 200 points on China’s currency revaluation, GOOG was up, somewhere north of 4%. 

Somebody in Mountain View must have been reading Drucker.

TakeAway:  Build on your present successes while investing in imaginative new opportunities that your future customers don’t even know they need yet.

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

sources:  http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/google-announces-plans-for-new-operating-structure.htmlhttp://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/11/why-investors-like-googles-alphabet-news-analyst.html