Adapt or Die?

henry-fordThe world is changing rapidly.  I saw a program on PBS last night about Henry Ford and it made me think of today and our own industry.  He built the very successful Model T but as the world, automobile design, and customer needs and wants changed, he still insisted that the Model T was the only car that the country needed.  Only after General Motors and Chrysler took the lead in the automobile world away from him, did he still reluctantly bow to his son’s demands that they introduce a new model car.

I’ve seen similar situations in our own industry.  Owners of gift and gift basket businesses say “I don’t need a website,” “I don’t need to learn anything about internet marketing,” and even the more self-fulfilling prophecy of “what I know now is all I ever need to know.”  And then there are those who think themselves to be experts that can’t be taught anything more about small business, marketing, internet, social media, and everything else that changes as the world changes.  I’ve been given that reason many times for not paying the $27.95 a year that it costs to subscribe to our magazine or not participating in the forum, which doesn’t cost them a dime.

And it’s not just in the area of gift and gift basket company owners. We’ve seen similar lamenting by journalists angry that bloggers are polluting their craft. Or professional authors who feel they’ve been overrun by independent writers on Kindle. Sure, it sucks when change come along, but you’ve got a choice and that choice is…

Adapt or Die.

Which will you take?

3 thoughts on “Adapt or Die?”

  1. That’s very true, Diane. There seem to be thousands of them out there and so many people calling themselves expert so you have to be careful that the information you are receiving is legitimate. And we all learn in different ways. For me, personally, I hate webinars as they usually ramble on saying what could be said in much less time. For me, I prefer to learn by reading. But that is me.
    We’re never too old to learn something new And we need to step outside our own industry to learn. I signed up for a fairly expensive writing class today with a writer whose work I’ve always admired. Sure, I can write — and I think I write reasonably well — but there are still many things I can learn!

  2. How true your words are Joyce. One very good area of learning and expertise that doesn’t cost but is extremely informative are the many webinars run by many marketing and internet marketing gurus. Only yesterday I took the time to listen to a very good webinar on an idea that I could apply to my gift business here in Christchurch, New Zealand that others in my industry are not doing. These days you do have to find new ways of marketing your business to tap into new potential customers. There are always going to be new ideas that we can try and learn from. Bring on these changes I say.

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