While one of the functions or objectives of a business is to create customers (as it is to be profitable), it isn't its purpose.

Its purpose is its reason for being there - which could be to design the best computers on the market, or build the lightest race bike, or create the best search engine in the world, or help people find great deals on flights and book their tickets online.

Semantics. I know. I may be splitting hairs here, but I think that the distinction between business functions and the purpose (or raison d'etre) of a business is important.

Businesses earn and retain customers by being true to their purpose, which is generally to provide either a great product or a great service, or both. When businesses get in trouble is when they stray from their purpose and begin to think mostly (or only) in terms of function: Creating more customers and becoming more profitable. Hence the difference.

I once worked for a company that started out with a purpose (and quickly rose to the very pinnacle of its industry, where it stayed for a couple of decades), but over time, replaced purpose (creating great products, providing the best quality and customer service in the industry) with function (increasing sales and profits). The result:

1) To cut costs, production moved from the US to asia.
2) The company started buying ready-to-build products instead of designing them.
3) Quality took a nose dive.
4) Deliveries became a problem.
5) Customer service took a nose-dive as well.
6) The functionality and specific (branded) look and feel of the products evaporated into thin air.
7) The company, which had always been profitable and relevant by selling superquality products - but no longer did - found itself forced to defend its fading relevance in a market already saturated with low-price "same-as" products. Within a year of the change, its only resort was to start engaging in price wars with other cheap, similar looking asian imports.

Everything that had once made this company the best in its industry (quality, design, dependability, and superior service) shriveled up and died.

Purpose vs. function. Two sides of a coin that MUST be a) clearly defined, and b) balanced as well as possible.

But back to my example: On paper, the business looked good, at first. By lowering its prices, it created a few more customers than it lost. By buying its products for a fraction of the cost of making them, its profits increased.

For anyone looking to make their company's books look good in the short term, this was a brilliant plan.

In the long run, however, this kind of strategy (or lack thereof) is the kiss of death for a brand.

Could this particular business have balanced its purpose with its objectives? Yes. Of course it could have. (Heck, it should have.) But it didn't. Why? Because its leadership didn't understand a) the difference between purpose and function, and b) the importance of having a purpose. A raison d'etre.

This is why creating customers (and being profitable) can't be the purpose of a business. Function, yes. Objective, yes. Side-effect, definitely. Purpose, nope.

(If that makes any sense.)

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business."

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. "

"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it."

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and what did that produce - the cuckoo clock!"

- Orson Welles, as Harry Lime in The Third Man.

"The intersection of diverse cultures sparks intense conflict and creativity. Innovation is a passionate, messy business, not for the faint hearted or the weak minded. (...) The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers, new goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization … that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in."

- Joseph Schumpeter

"Whether you are Jack Welch or the Dalai Lama, it is dangerous not to do what you love. If you don't have a level of passion that drives your thinking about what you're doing day in and day out, there will be others out there who are passionate who will overtake and outrun you. People who care will take the initiative away from those who are half-hearted. So loving what you do is a competitive imperative, not simply a nice thing to have."

Knowledge @ Wharton interviews Mark Thompson and Stewart Emery, co-authors along with Jerry Porras of Success Built to Last

"With consumer behavior evolving toward a more empowered status—the definition of creativity has shifted from one-dimensional skills to a four-dimensional type of creativity that blends logical thinking with creative problem solving. Individuals possessing this “New Creative Mindset” blend Analytical, Expressive, Curious and Sensual qualities into their thinking process. The result is a holistic approach to creativity that is effective across multiple touch points and experiences.


"Can an Information Architect embody this kind of mindset? What about an Account Director? I think as human beings we are all capable of thinking like this. But as designers, communicators, marketers and creators of experiences—for us, it’s even more critical to become multi-dimensional creative thinkers and problem solvers. I’m not the only one talking about this. Tim Brown from IDEO evangelizes “Design Thinking” and “T-shaped People”. Both principles are related. Design Thinking encourages Designers to think past aesthetics and design simple solutions for complex problems. T-shaped people have a core competency but branch out into other areas and can do them well (thus forming a T). And of course there is the new kind of collaboration that comes with this—where we combine people with diverse skill sets who often times speak very different languages but need to come together to make their collective and diverse skills work together.



"(...) So where does this all go from here? If you feel like you fit the bill, you’re probably thinking about how marketable you are right now. And remember, we’re not talking about a “jack of all trades” here. “Creativity 2.E” is not about doing everything and learning every application under the sun. It’s about being curious, empathetic, analytical, insightful and expressive all at the same time. It’s about being willing to do anything to get into the heads of your customer/user. It’s about adopting new tools, techniques and artifacts to help make your case for creating the right kinds of communications, interactions and experiences. So what to do if you’re feeling left out?

"Put that energy into developing an acute sense of curiosity and optimism. Become like a child. Participate in the emerging media. Start a blog, update your site or if you don’t have one—set it up. Dive into the digital social communities and be willing to do what your customers do. Try methodology that you might not ordinarily consider. PowerPoint isn’t just for presentations. Flash isn’t just for motion. Move past boxes, arrows, colors, layouts, charts, funnels, and metrics."

10. Yes, but why do I care?
9. I’m sorry but your product/company/feature does not make me go “aHA”, “cool”, “I want that”...yet.
8. Yes, it’s hard, but the devil is in the details.
7. Have you asked your customer’s what they want?
6. The last 20% effort is when things get really interesting?
5. No, real evangelism, buzz and community cannot be manufactured out of thin air.
4. Cultivating impassioned customers for sustainable growth actually takes time.
3. Because they are your customers – you are developing products for their use.
2. It's a relationship, and relationships take work.
1. Why are you so afraid of your customers?

"If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that's in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It'll save everyone a lot of time. On the other hand, if you want great work, you'll need to embrace some simple facts:

"It's going to offend someone. If it doesn't offend them, then it will make them nervous. The Vietnam Vets memorial offended a lot of people. The design of Google made plenty of people nervous. Great work from a design team means new work, refreshing and remarkable and bit scary.

"(...) You don't know a lot about accounting so you don't backseat drive your accountant. You hired a great designer, please don't backseat drive here, either.

"(...) Don't get stressed about your logo. Get very stressed about user interface and product design. And your packaging."

"When I travel outside the US (a lot, lately), I keep finding a culture of design. A culture of aesthetics and style that seems natural in that country, but rarer (and often forced) in the US. Here in the US, we have Designers, Artists, Architects, etc.... and then the rest of us.. But in the places I've been visiting, those lines are often blurred. Outside the US, the appreciation for--and ability to create--beauty is not just something "left to the professionals." This design sensitivity/sensibility doesn't touch everything, but it seems far more pervasive than it does here. And I say this having spent most of my adult life in southern California, where you can't swing a cat without hitting a design school grad. It's not our US designers that have gone missing... it's a culture of design we seem to lack."

"Invisible leadership feels more like doing the best things without yielding power. Invisible leaders influence the system and people by being a partner.

"How do you select, hire, measure, and retain invisible leaders? Now that's the rub. Well, if they love what they do (and they'd have to) retention is probably not the issue. Finding invisible leaders will take more work and a whole new mindset toward hiring criteria. The behavioral interview, so popular today, might not work to find the best invisible leader.

"Personally, for my next corporate gig, I want a fair wage for what my role is expected to contribute and then NO financial incentives. Hold me accountable - absolutely. Fire me in a heart beat if I do not perform. If I am doing my job as a leader, you will know it - not because I get accolades at meetings or make big and flashy wins. You will know it because the workplace is engaged, on fire, and performing better than you could have imagined."

- Lisa Haneberg

(...)Their legend tells how this spiritual ancestor ended up in England — and eventually married a queen. Which explains why the Duke of Edinburgh, who is well aware of his role as a god in the eyes of the Yaohnanen tribe, has established a curious relationship with these people, who dwell in a simple village in the centre of the Vanuatu island of Tanna in the South Pacific.

Such is the revered status the Duke holds among the 400 tribespeople that, as their chickens scratch the dirt, they speak of him with the kind of devotion Catholics reserve for the Virgin Mary.

'We are waiting for him to return to us,' says white-haired Jack Naiva, the aged tribal chief, who thinks the Prince's 85th birthday, a week today, would be the perfect opportunity.

'But he'd better hurry up because I'm not getting any younger — and neither is he. We'll build him a nice little house, he can have all the servants he wants and every day we will come to kneel at his feet because he is our true leader.'