What will your customers want from your business in 10 years?
Keep this question in mind for a healthy dose of perspective. In an age where technology and business fads change at an unbelievable pace, you could easily spend all your time just trying to keep up.
But Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, once gave this advice: “base your strategy on things that won’t change.” That might seem surprising coming from the CEO of a tech-heavy company, but it also explains Amazon’s success. They’ve chosen to focus on having a big selection, low prices, and fast delivery. In 10 years, all of those things will still be true, whether that package is delivered to your door by the UPS or dropped from the sky by a delivery drone.
For us at OrangeQC, we believe our clients will always want refreshingly simple solutions for janitorial inspections and work order management. We know they’ll always want to be able to call us for help without worrying they’ll have to pay support fees. We know they’ll always want inspections—and results—to be intuitive. On the flip side, no one will ever come to us and say, “I really love reading long training manuals and sitting through boring training seminars, just so I can use my own software.” With this in mind, we focus on keeping everything easy to use from Day 1.
What about your company? What core values will still be important to your own clients 10 years from now? Maybe it’s consistent service that your clients know they can count on. Maybe it’s having a personal touch, so that your clients know they can easily get in touch with concerns or requests whenever things come up.
When you answer this question for your own company, you’ll know where to spend your time, energy, and resources. Of course, new technologies and strategies will help you get there—but when you focus on the long-term, you’ll know which ones are worth embracing.
