Create a Culture of Commerce
If you’re going to start a movement, you may as well start a culture of commerce to support it.
(This is not my idea. I got this idea from the Wizards at Salesforce.)
Why create a culture of commerce? Because inside most B2B orgs and even B2C orgs, there are many players at play in IT that want to have their say / way. IT gets political, somewhat strangely. It’s not just IT, either. Everyone in in organizations takes sides, cultural sides. We brand-up the way I align with Apple. Others align with Microsoft. (Yes, strangely.) Some align with Salesforce. Some — extraordinarily strangely, even outrageously — align with SAP / Oracle. (Yes, very strange.) These factions and people tend to war, which is no good for the org, nor for progress. It becomes about taking sides and aligning our identities to software companies vs. what’s best for the org, even if we can’t admit it. All this battling and posturing leads us to stalemate. Which means that nothing productive gets done.
Enter the culture of commerce.
The culture of commerce is comprised of the attitudes, outlooks, perspectives and behaviors that align to enhance commerce, to build it up, to make it easier. People agree that we are all here to make commerce easier. We put the customer above our software vendor alignments and politics. We ask the customer what they want to see from us and what’s most important to them. We seek them out early and often, gaining feedback and traction and agreement with them. We want our customers to feel understood.
What we’re doing here is getting to the heart of what matters most. It is hard to describe how important an idea commerce is to us as businesspeople, as sales & marketing pros, as Entrepreneurs, as human beings. We exchange money for value. Period. The best, most successful businesses create and provide extraordinary value for money. The business that provides the most value to the marketplace generally wins, but not always. This value exchange is the overarching story arc of all our efforts as business pros. It doesn’t matter if you’re Marc Benioff or a collegiate intern just getting your start, it is still about the value exchange. Without it, nothing that we do makes sense.
The way it was. O.G. Software folks. We were never singing in the same key.
Old guard software vendors tied up their customers in long-term contracts and IT folks. Great for the old guard software vendors and IT folks, not so great for the customers. New product rollouts and implementations often took years — Years! — versus the way things are now done with SAAS. The culture of commerce back then was all about the vendor. All about what the vendor said. All about what the vendor wanted. All about the top-down, Soviet-style vendor-centricity. “This is the way they do it around here,” you’re IT guy said. You know, the IBM WebSphere way. It’ll take us 6 months to sing the IBM song, and we won’t all be singing it together. We’ll be like teenagers singing in a top-down, corporal punishment-style, forced-parochial choir. We certainly all won’t be singing it in the same key.
The way it is now. The Culture of Commerce changes things. The culture of commerce shifts org culture.
The culture of commerce changes things because it isn’t 100% about the tech. It is 100% about the customer and what she wants. The tech matters — a lot — but it isn’t everything. What it’s really about is how easy we are to do business with. (How easy was IBM to do business with? How about now?)
It sure is strange today — in 2020 — how hard it is to do business with some folks. Astonishing, really. You would think businesses would do everything they could to make it super simple to do business with them. The most successful ones do.
We tend to forget what it is all for. We tend to forget Who it is all done for.
As business and IT pros, we tend to forget what it’s all for. Why are we here? What is our #1 reason for existing? Who do we seek to serve? It isn’t the How. It is The Who. /Who/ are we here to serve? The most important question in marketing isn’t what’s the campaign going to be that sells the most units? It is who is this for? Asking, Who is this for?, automatically sets your stuff apart because it is no longer for everyone. It is only for these people over here. It solves the problem these people have. Our thing adds value to their lives because they have a stinging problem they want solved! THAT’s why we’re here. This is our reason for existing. This is who we are as a people, as a culture, as a family. It is either 100% about the customer or it isn’t.
It is important to revisit this often, especially as we continue to be successful. Because as business history tells us, it is really easy to lose your way along the path. We are successful because we seek out our customer, ask her what she wants, and find out what a big win looks like to her.
The culture of commerce extends the value ladder. We are rarely here just for one thing. Apple doesn’t sell you just one thing. Salesforce doesn’t sell you just one thing. Dan Kennedy doesn’t sell you just one thing. Brendon doesn’t sell you just one thing. No. They extend the value ladder to their customers by actually listening to their customers’ needs and desires and dreams. Great companies / Entrepreneurs listen to, think about, and execute on new products and services for their customers. The one thing may be good, even great, but it doesn’t solve all the problems for the people they seek to serve.
Sell them this. And they’ll also need that.
You can sell me the copywriting training, but I’m also going to need the marketing training, too. You can sell me the MacBook Pro, but if I am brand new to the Mac OS platform, I’m going to need some genius training, too. You can sell me sales training, but my guys will also need some personal development training, too. Back in the old days, you can sell me IBM WebSphere, but you better sell me professional services with it, too, or else the software will just sit there, boxed in the corner, collecting dust. (Yes, software used to be sold in boxes off of shelves with big, thick instructional manuals.) It’s rarely just one thing that gets it done. We need to extend the value ladder. We need to think, “What else can I provide for them that will help move them along on the path to success?”
Done-For-You!?
From a pure, Entrepreneurial perspective, it is the manual or How-to book. Then, up the ladder, it is the course you put together on how they can learn how to do it themselves. And the top of the ladder is the Done-for-You professional services offer. Book, course, coaching, Done-for-You. Professional services is always your most expensive, highest value offer because you’re solving their problems for them. You’re solving their implementation problems for them. You’re saving them time & money & effort. You’re providing the software and the human brainpower to help power it and make it work for them. You can look at done-for-you as one big asset sold to them over and over again. These three or four or five or six steps comprise the value ladder, an extension of the culture of commerce.
## What if we…?
Creatives are always asking What if we…? questions. What if we helped them get the result they’re after before we ask for anything in return? What if we provided that value upfront before asking for anything? What if we gave them a long trial / test drive before they buy? What would that look like? What if we hopped in there and helped to solve their problem for them together? What would this look like if it were easy? What if we built-in automation where it best fits, where there is repetition and recursion and definitive patterns, and then leave the other parts up to human creativity and ingenuity? What if we stressed simplicity to the end-user and made it all revolve around her? What if we release early and often, seek customer feedback early and often, and then iterate forward?
Never stop asking the ‘What if we…? ‘ questions.
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