Beware of This Silent Prospect Thief

Beware of This Silent Prospect Thief

I was listening to the radio the other day and a report came across that sales of some consumer electronic product sales were down 6%.

Nope. It wasn’t the Gazillion-inch Big Screen TVs that were hardest hit.    

The casualties?

DVD and MP3 players and GPS devices were the ones left sitting on store shelves.

Much of this accelerated rate of decline in these older technology categories can be traced to the flood of cell phones on the market today that seem limitless in what they are able to do for users.

The Garmin GPS I got my daughter for Christmas two years ago?  Stuffed in her glove box along with a pen that doesn’t write and a collection of receipts, fast food napkins and a broken CD case.

Now she follows her iPhone wherever it goes.

Simply put, the cell phone is the better mousetrap. Sexy, shiny. It’s the electronic world’s ultimate multi-tasker and it’s making a lot of other old school products obsolete.

The same thing can happen to our service and product offerings if we’re not careful.

I call it chasing the ‘next, bright, shiny thing.’

Our prospects want to do business with partners who are current.

Whether it’s making over your web site so it looks (and acts) contemporary. Making sure you’re part of the social media phenomenon. Or coming up with new products and services that put a slight twist on your core offerings.

One thing’s for sure, your prospects are going to compare you against a host of other options available.

And when they do, it’s important to make sure you’ve done everything you can to give them an “ah ha” experience.

Surprise them. Enlighten them. Show them you’re keeping up with the times.

Whatever you do, keep evolving. Let your competitors be the ones who wind up in the glove box.