To Save Its Business, Barnes & Noble Is Pivoting to Books (Yeah, Seriously)

Barnes & Noble is pivoting to books, writes Quartz.

This sounds like a joke, but it's not.

And it's going to focus on books, because that’s what its customers expect, said CEO Demos Parneros. 

Again: yeah, seriously.

But, actually, it makes total sense. The experiment to diversify into Legos, socks, and Kate Spade iPhone cases failed... because people want the experience of shopping in an actual bookstore, talking to people who know and love actual books. If you are a book person: is there anything cooler than a real bookstore vibe?

That experience is something Amazon can't compete with.

"Experience" in many businesses is a terrible term, because often it's vague and amorphous. What does it mean, anyway? And how do we get some of that?

How is my industrial paper product supply company or telecom company or marketing services agency or [insert the category of almost any other business here] supposed to do to embrace "experience," anyway?

A start toward creating better customer experiences has to do two things:

1. Sweat the trivial. Add value in expected places, as my friend Mitch Joel says.

2. Approach your customers with a Squad Mentality. Lead a squad by speaking to only those people you want to ignite, and ignore the rest.

The non-squad people might eventually latch on to your message.

Or they might not. But without #SquadGoals as a central goal, no one will follow you.

Which brings us back to Barnes & Noble. B&N hasn't felt like a real bookstore for a long time. (The fidget spinners at the checkout are just the start.)

Why don't more retailers lean into their strengths... instead of bemoaning their Amazonian-sized weaknesses?