Copyright newsagencyblog
I have a confession to make. I feel a bit foolish, and that’s not always a comfortable feeling. But this time, I’m glad I do. It means I had a wonderful reminder I probably should have remembered sooner. For the last couple of years, we’ve been refining our product mix across at our www.mintcoinshop.com.au website that’s connected to one of my shops. We’ve developed a good sense of who our customers are and what they like. Or at least, we thought we did. We’d been intentionally saying ‘no’ to certain products, especially coin designs that seemed a bit… “out there.” This policy was put to the test recently when we saw a new range of Halloween coins from Europe. My immediate reaction was a hard ‘no’. I looked at them and thought they were gimmicky. They felt “risqué” for our brand. I was convinced they would never appeal to our core audience of serious coin collectors. My internal narrative was all about protecting our reputation, maintaining our curated standard, and not wasting money on stock that wouldn’t move. This was my bias, fully at work, masquerading as ‘good business strategy.’ I was just about to send the ‘pass’ email to the supplier when I remembered a classic retail truth hit me: We are not our customer. My personal taste is irrelevant. My assumptions about what a ‘serious collector’ enjoys are just that, assumptions. Who am I to say that someone who appreciates a rare proof coin doesn’t also have a sense of humour and a love for Halloween? So, we changed course. We took the risk. We ordered some of each design. Last night, with a healthy dose of skepticism, I drafted a simple marketing email. I sent it out at 10 PM, figuring we’d see what happened by morning. (I even used what I call “deflection framing” in the copy, which is a whole other story, but it was my way of subtly bracing for a non-response). This morning at 7 AM I checked the results. We were completely sold out. Every single coin. I’m thrilled, of course. But I’m also kicking myself. I’m glad we took the risk, but I feel foolish for not taking it sooner. How many other opportunities have we missed over the last two years because our personal preferences got in the way? It’s a powerful lesson in the dangers of “managing for average.” So many businesses I see manage for average, they manage for results they can be sure of – often denying their business the opportunity of even better results, with a risk for sure, but with that risk comes education and that’s the cornerstone of growth. It’s easy to get comfortable. It’s easy and safe to keep doing what we’ve always done. If we do, we’ll probably keep hitting our targets. We’ll do fine. Fine is the enemy of better. Chasing “safe” means we might miss reaching for something exceptional. Our comfort zone is a place where new opportunities rarely grow. This little experiment proved that the real risk isn’t trying something we think won’t work; the real risk is letting our biases stop us from finding out for sure. I’m sharing this because it’s a reminder I needed. That feeling of being wrong, of being foolish, is a sign of growth. It means you’re pushing past your assumptions. It leaves me with one big question for myself, and for you: What are you saying ‘no’ to right now, simply because you don’t get it or don’t like it? That might be the very thing you should try next. Final note: Right now, for newsagency businesses, that I have written about here matters. We are at a moment in time where we must play outside our small sandpit, where we must take risks in order to attract new shoppers. This is urgent for each of our businesses and vital for the channel and all who rely on the channel. I can’t stress this enough and the urgency with which we must act. Mark Fletcher founded newsagency software company Tower Systems and is the CEO of newsXpress, a marketing group serving innovative newsagents keen to evolve their businesses for a bright future. You can reach him on mark@newsxpress.com.au or 0418 321 338.
