What if your business disappeared tomorrow?

If your business disappeared tomorrow, would anybody miss you?

No one wants to close their doors. But let’s imagine the unthinkable: how would your customers and employees respond if you did close up shop?

Scenario one: you disappear and no one notices. That would be a disaster, but what would it tell you? Maybe it tells you that whatever needs your service or product fulfilled, those needs could be fulfilled by someone else. What you had to offer in the end was just a commodity and a paycheque, and those things are replaceable.

Scenario two: you close your doors and your customers and employees wander around dazed and confused; they can’t imagine life without you. That would still be a disaster, but the story is different. No one else could meet your tribe's needs the way you did. Whatever you had to offer was not a commodity, it was something else, something irreplaceable.

We all want to survive and we all want to thrive. But how cool would it be if our customers and employees want us to thrive as much as we do?

What would make a business that irreplaceable?

A commodity is 'swappable'. A ton of copper is a ton of copper. A pound of chicken from one factory farm, is pretty much the same as that same protein from another factory farm. The only differentiators are price and convenience. Businesses selling their products or services like commodities are always looking over their shoulders, knowing something cheaper, shinier, more convenient, is coming up behind them.

What can we offer that can’t be replaced?

A relationship is the opposite of a commodity

Relationships are truly unique. No two customers, no two businesses, no two employees, and especially none of the relationships between any of those entities, are exactly the same. Relationships cannot be reproduced, period. Not more quickly, not more cheaply. Not at all.

What cannot be reproduced has no competition.

A positive relationship is the ultimate competitive advantage. Unreproducible, un-reverse-engineerable, irreducible: if you are forced to close, the relationship is what will be missed.

How do we create those unique, positive relationships?

1. Understand your customers and your employees. Do you really know them? What they want, what they hate, what will they splurge on and what do they buy in bulk, where do they live, what excites them, their values?
2. Know why your customers and employees value your business. What keeps them coming back? What need or desire do you fulfil? What do you offer that makes them choose you over your competitors?
3. Know (or create) a shared language. What signals can you use to help your people feel like you ‘get them’? What can you bring to the relationship that will make them feel like they are truly important when dealing with you? What shared words and images speak make your best employees and customers feel like they are part of something special?

The answers can’t be about a product or service. If the only thing that you know about your customers is that their trigger is a loss-leader sale on detergents, or that your employees value your business for what you pay (even paying well), you need to ask better questions. If those are the only things that tie your customers and employees to you, your business is still about commodities.

Let's Get Naked

In the world of the global village we live in, commodities are global: if you sell commodities, your competition is everywhere, and nowhere. Commodification is becoming disruptive. AI, 3D printing, 'instant' shipping, all allow you to get what you want, and more importantly make you feel like it was made 'just for you.' When it wasn't. The process that made it has no idea what 'you' are. The work of Amazon to mine the long tail (traditionally the ecosystem of tribes, fans, and cultists), and Facebook to quantify personality, and other efforts driven by the use of large data and a hyper-[dis]connected technologies, have all made many things that were not easy to transact as commodities ('underground' books, fringe ideas, truly new music or film), into pseudo-non-commodities. That's a linguistically ugly phrase, and we'll have to come up with another, but it is seeking to describe this chimera that is either a commodified relationship and/or a personalized commodity.

It is to the world of buyer-seller relationships, what the uncanny valley is to the world of digital effects and robotics.

The changes coming will be wrenching. The industrial-age notions of privacy, for example, are being challenged on a daily basis. Marshall Mcluhan's notion of the global village is going to become something darker than he imagined. We are going to feel either very naked and exposed, or very shut out if we don't participate.

How that all works out remains to be seen, but what is clear is that real relationships, trust, and personal influence matter more in business than they have in a century. A business that can nurture what its employees and customers experience as true relationships - relationships built on, and nurturing, safety, purpose, and belonging - can justify higher margins, ask more of its people, and reduce churn and turnover at levels that create measurable competitive advantage.

There are many ways our businesses can nurture unique relationships with our employees and customers. These seven are just a quick scratch list.

1. Treat employees and customers as if they had names. Because they do. Who doesn’t like to go into a shop to be greeted by name and to be asked if you’ll have ‘your usual…’? Make it a practice to have conversations, in person if you can, and online rather than not at all. Keep notes of key conversations, likes and dislikes. People aren't just a resource, or a data point. They are people, and have names.
2. Make people feel like they are “on the inside”. This accesses the powerful human need for belonging. Everyone loves to feel like they are part of an ‘inner circle’. Create memberships, create events, be exclusive, intentionally. Share 'secrets' and make members feel like they have a privileged inside track.
3. Tell Stories. The time of the village tale, made famous by the likes of the brothers Grimm, is more important than ever. People need stories. We want to know how things come to be, how they relate to each other, where the magic starts. Shared stories make us feel like we are on the inside. Every business, employee, and product has a story. Find a way to tell them.
4. People and passion come before money. How did Radiohead and Trent Reznor make a fortune giving away music for free? They understood that relationships with their fans come before the money. And their fans rewarded them royally. Of course we know you are in business to make money, but if that is all there is, and your food, your fashions, your experiences, or your buildings don't resonate with the passion for something more, you are risking a slide into selling commodities.
5. Get out there. For real. Community service matters. But it must be in alignment with your values and your behaviours. You will get crucified if you get behind 'girls in tech' initiatives if we discover you make no efforts to treat women with respect and equity in your workplace. Figure out the values you will actually pay to act on, even when it is inconvenient or costly, and get behind them. Be more than a business, be an active member of your community. As in any good relationship, you get back what you put in.
6. Give people something to talk about. Do something remarkable, for them. It doesn’t have to be anything huge, just remarkable enough that it makes people talk. I have been in businesses where there is a culture of doing small cool things for people. They are cultures brimming with people who can't wait to share stories about those small cool sweet gestures. A little gift, a special delivery, some great advice, a referral to a competitor when it's the right thing to do. Whatever it is, be remarkable, and people will remark.
7. And most important of all… Listen. No survey, no marketing report can take the place of a conversation. Never miss an opportunity to give people a chance to talk about themselves, about the things that brought them into your business, about the passions you share. Ask questions. And when they talk, listen. You are listening for at least two things: anything that tells you more about who your customers are; and anything that tells you why they are with you now. With these two pieces of information you can feed the experience feedback loop. If you know who someone is, and why they come to you, you are better able to tailor the experience of your business to be responsive to those needs and triggers.

Understanding someone's needs is central to building relationships. And the better you understand what someone really needs, the better you can nurture a relationship. You will have crossed that threshold where people come to you for a relationship and an experience, not just for a commodity. They do business with you because they value the relationship. That cannot be reproduced.

If you were to close your doors after developing remarkable relationships like these, you would be missed indeed. But here's the very cool kicker: businesses built on meaningful, high-value relationships rarely have to close their doors.