Once upon a time, I had a wonderful sales letter (used for my small business consulting practice) that worked well for me. My goal in sending this letter was to get meetings with prospects. It seemed that, for every ten letters I sent, I'd get an appointment -- pretty good results. The letter I used was a modification of one given to me by Hal Wright, a fellow consultant out of Chicago. He had used it successfully for over ten years.
After a few years, I got bored with the letter. So I wrote a new letter. I was very proud of it. My new letter had more five-dollar, upscale, consulting words in it. The text flowed better. So I replaced the old letter with my new one. Then I noticed that my appointment rate was dropping. I couldn't believe that the cause was my fine new letter but a ran a test, sending the old letter to some prospects and the new letter to others. The results astounded me. The old letter resulted in an appointment 11.5% of the time. The rate for my "new and improved" letter was 4.5%. I swallowed my pride, ditched my new letter and went back to that "old" ho-hum letter. And got more small business consulting clients.
The business world is full of good ideas that have been cast aside in the quest for something new. Management got tired of and bored with an old-but-successful successful concept and wanted a change. But the change was not always a good thing. Seven Up spent a decade building market share with ads for the Uncola. Then management (not the public) got bored with the Uncola concept and changed the ads. And promptly lost market share.
In the late 1970s, Burger King had McDonalds on the run with "Have It Your Way." They made the public aware that there was a real difference in the way their burger production line was set up. Burger King could easily accommodate customized burgers. ("Hold the pickles; Hold the lettuce; Special orders don't upset us.") McDonalds couldn't easily deal with special orders. Then Burger King changed ad agencies, changed concepts and got rolled over by McD (who has always had a pretty consistent image and message).
In the 1980s, Coca Cola ran focus groups and learned (they thought) that people wanted a sweeter cola drink, like Pepsi. So they dumped their old formula and introduced New Coke trying to get Pepsi drinkers to switch brands. But Pepsi-drinkers just kept guzzling Pepsi and all Coke did was anger their traditional customers, cause confusion in the marketplace, and lose sales. (And they got a lot of bad publicity to boot!) So they went back to Old Coke which they renamed Classic Coke. New Coke soon disappeared into the same limbo as my New Letter. (and my non-existent New Letter small business consulting clients.)
In the mid-'60s, the Volkswagen Beetle was the biggest selling imported car in the U.S., offering simple, basic transportation. Then they tried to move upmarket with the Super Beetle and the 411/412 models. Volkswagen lost their focus and lost their market leadership. Datsun, Toyota and Honda became the leading imported brands because they became synonymous with simple, basic transportation.
In business, it's the results that count. New is not always better. People running companies (small and large) sometimes forget this when they get bored with the same old thing and want to try something new. By all means, try new things but be sure to run some small marketing tests first to see if your new idea really works. Measure results and don't be afraid to go back to "old reliable" if it works best.
copyright 1997
Joseph M. Sherlock
Joseph M. Sherlock is a consultant specializing in business advice to small and mid-size firms. He is author of a noted business book as well as a business plan workbook.