You're Not The Same Anymore

When Alfred Sloan took the reins of General Motors in 1923, he was determined to not make the same mistake as Henry Ford, and do things differently.

Doing things differently, however, didn't require much out-of-the-box thinking, since Ford had already put a lot of constraints on how the cars were to be assembled.

Though Model T had been very successful, Henry Ford didn't want to experiment much with the assembly line that he had created. In his famous statement, he declared that "consumers can have cars in any color they want as long as it's black."

In other words, Ford remained focused on producing reasonably priced cars, but in this process, ignored consumer preferences.

Sloan had different views. His mantra was that "best way to serve the customer is the way customer wants to be served."

Not every customer was same according to him, and their diverse needs had to be served through diverse products. Added to that, he believed that "eye appeal" was an important factor in car sales; a very different opinion than Ford.

So in 1924, General Motors became the first big automaker to offer colors in cars. And just 3 years later in 1927, Ford had to stop the production of Model T for months before it introduced its next car, Model A. You guessed it: Model A came in different colors.

But the damage was done.

General Motors had become the market leader by that time, a position that it held for most part of the 20th century.

You see, one part of marketing is about anticipating customer needs, and not telling them what their needs should be, or imposing your own preferences on them.

Model T, no doubt, was a huge success. But the thing about customer needs and wants is that they are dynamic. They are subject to change. Sometimes you adapt to the changing scenario. Sometimes you predict the future scenario and start working on it. And other times you get a chance to create the future scenario.

But whatever you do, it won't be permanent. Times will always change. Needs and preferences of people will change.

So the best way to serve them? Just listen to them.