The problem with putting on The Greatest Show on Earth wasn’t getting people to come the first time.
It was getting them to come back.
Because eventually…
They’ve already seen the elephants.
That was one of the seven lessons I wrote down in my little circus book back in 1997.
The Ringling Brothers circus had an interesting business model.
They would come to your town.
Everybody would get excited.
You’d see the parade.
You’d buy your ticket.
You’d see the elephants and lions and trapeze artists and everything else that made it The Greatest Show on Earth.
It was amazing.
But then they’d leave.
And eventually they’d come back.
Now they had a problem.
You’d already seen it.
You’d already seen the elephants.
You’d already seen the trapeze artists.
You’d already experienced The Greatest Show on Earth.
So why would you pay to see it again?
Their answer was a great lesson:
ALL NEW! NEVER SEEN BEFORE!
They understood that if they wanted yesterday’s customers to become tomorrow’s customers, they had to give them a new reason to come back.
That’s an interesting way to think about innovation.
We usually think innovation means inventing something new.
But there’s another way to look at it.
Innovation is retention.
Innovation is retention.
It’s giving people who already know you…
already like you…
already trust you…
and have already bought from you…
a new reason to raise their hand.
That’s especially valuable because those are the easiest people in the world to do business with.
You don’t have to introduce yourself.
You don’t have to establish credibility.
You don’t have to convince them you can deliver.
They’ve already been to the circus.
You just need a reason for them to come back.
That doesn’t necessarily mean completely reinventing your business every year.
It might be a new experience.
A new offer.
A new application.
A new event.
A new way to use something they already value.
Something that lets you legitimately put a banner out front saying:
ALL NEW! NEVER SEEN BEFORE!
If everybody who has ever done business with you suddenly showed up tomorrow and said…
“Okay. What have you got that I haven’t seen?”
What would you show them?
Because they’ve already seen the elephants.
The elephants can still be there.
You just need something new on the poster. 😉
Dean