The Relevancy of Reimagining Your Business For Long-Term Success

Star Trek has had multiple incarnations. The original series, the next generation, a series in deep space and one called Enterprise. There have been movies and next generation events. Now the franchise goes back to the beginning and we see the original cast in a new light (and much younger). The second movie with this cast has already been given the green light to move forward. This was announced even before the first movie hit theaters.

Is there a lesson in all of this for business? Yes.

No business should ever remain static. There should always be a push to move forward. At some point this requires some reimagination. This whole concept means the business needs to reinvent who it is, rediscover why it does what it does and find the relevancy in reaching out to a new group of potential buyers.

Television does this all the time. They are intent on reaching out to younger and upwardly mobile viewers. This is why you don't see Gunsmoke or Mork and Mindy on network television today. At some point a series simply fades in response to the most recent demographic change.

It may be lamentable for some, but it does provide unique challenges and opportunity to reach out to new buyers. If you can't accomplish this goal you will ultimately find your business slowly dying. Everything that looks new and shiny today will seem old and outdated in just a few months. Where once you could go a few years without altering anything today we find businesses in a constant mode of reinvention and continual tweaking.

This may sound as if the business doesn't know what it wants to do. Actually this concept is needed to help discover who your customers are. Any good business owner knows that business is driven by consumers and if you can't identify your target and learn to reach them then your business is marginalized. When that happens the business can begin to fade very quickly.

This does not mean you need to abandon existing customers or somehow insult them if they don't fit your demographic target, but it does mean that you work at constantly expanding the envelope of acceptance in your customer base.

There have been some great companies that have come and gone because they didn't see the need to redirect their attention to their target demographic.

If you're wondering how that works let me explain. If a business has a target of 18-30 year old women and they open their online business to appeal to that age group they have started well. If, however, over a period of time they continue to appeal to the exact crowd they started with then suddenly they are appealing to 23-35 year olds or 35-47.

There is comfort in the niche of an accepting consumer base. This idea might work, in fact it might even be a good business model for certain products, but the truth is at some point you will no longer have customers. This is why most businesses refocus their attention on a younger demographic. It is the only way to ensure the potential of consistent sales and a promising future.