Approximately 543,000 new businesses begin every month according to the Kauffman Foundation, creating an ever increasing level of noise in the marketplace. Even iconic brands like Blockbuster, Radio Shack and Toys R’ Us are not immune to becoming irrelevant and getting surpassed. The business climate has transitioned so much, in fact, that while established companies used to behave conservatively to protect market share, today’s environment demands forward thinking in marketing position and PR.
If a business’s message fails to evolve, it will lose customers. So what are the answers? Cheryl Conner has turned to leaders in cryptocurrency, one of the year’s most buzzed-about industries, as well as a leader from Dawn, one of America’s longest standing companies, for perspective on how their position and PR message must evolve to survive.
Adam Mittelberg, Chief Marketing Officer at DataBlockChain.io, and Alex Mihaljcic, VP of Product Development for Eterbank.com, two of the fast-rising brands, shared their insights with Cheryl:
- Be creative in looking for ways to modernize your business. DataBlockChain.io (DBC) is disrupting the data marketplace that traditionally only allowed large organizations to have access. DataBlockChain.io accomplishes this by integrating Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and other technologies into data merging to make this a reality. As Mittelberg explains, “Our team has been working in an industry that isn’t ‘sexy’, but we’ve managed to implement two of the most talked about technologies changing business today–AI and Blockchain.”
- Don’t just think about your business–make your industry more relevant as well. Alex Mihaljcic is VP of Product Development for Eterbank.com, a company that hopes to save the Cryptocurrency industry itself from becoming irrelevant. As Mihaljcic puts it, “The current long-term prognosis for cryptocurrency isn’t good. It is still seen mostly as having a ‘nerdy’ audience, hardly being understood by the general public, and categorized as a speculative investment.” Technologist Rob Versaw agrees, and maintains in a recent article, “The future of cryptocurrencies relies on retail.” Eterbank recognized that without the ability for individuals to buy ordinary things like a cup of coffee with cryptocurrency, mass adoption would never be feasible. So they created EterPos, a Point-of-Sale mobile application and business intelligence solution for accepting cryptocurrency payments with an instant crypto-to-fiat point-of-sale technology. With this system, someone can pay with Bitcoin, and the app transforms it into U.S. currencies or Euros, eliminating risk and complexity. Simply put, the solution lets consumers pay for coffee, pizza or jeans with crypto, making it an innovative PR move not only for Eterbank, but for the cryptocurrency market at large.
- Make transformation an inherent part of your culture. Finally, Cheryl spoke this week to Stevens Sainte-Rose, the Chief Transformation Officer for the very traditional iconic American brand, Dawn. Stevens leading the transformation of this 98-year old bakery ingredients manufacturing company from a focus on products to services. Ultimately the company will become a bakery solutions partner with a digitally enabled platform that will help customers achieve bakery success every day. As Stevens puts it, “Customers need to know and see that you care about their business and consumers as much as they do, and that you are invested in their success. You are not there to simply sell more of your products.” This means that Dawn needs to know its customers as well or better than they know themselves, and to proactively offer them insights and ideas. This strategy has been at the heart of Dawn’s success for years, but as time evolves, the company is becoming increasingly more progressive to maintain its success in a business landscape that is moving faster than ever before.
In all, whether you work in a new industry or a traditional market, it is vital to look beyond the way your company is succeeding today to think about how you need to position your solution and message to ensure you don’t become obsolete. In today’s fast paced environment, irrelevance is death and no business is immune to becoming passé.
This article was written by Cheryl Conner in the Forbes Small Business section, and it was edited.
