Can a Magnet Lose Its Strength?

Physical magnets actually do lose a very small fraction of their magnetism over time. For most magnets, it has been shown to be less than 1 percent over a period of 10 years.

Factors that can affect a magnet's strength include heat, radiation, strong electrical currents in close proximity to the magnet, and other magnets in close proximity to the magnet.

Unfortunately, in the case of a business, magnetism can disappear at a much faster rate. It might happen slowly, but it can also happen in what seems like the blink of an eye.

We've all seen it. A business is booming, customers are happy, and all is well. Then one day there's a Closed sign on the door. What happened?

There are also lots of businesses that do well and grow for a while, then plateau and get stuck at a level of results that lets them survive, but not prosper.

Some businesses never get off the ground, and it's no surprise when they simply don't make it. But what about the ones that do have that magnetic mojo going on, they are doing well, maybe even extremely well, for a period of time, and yet somehow it all slips away from them?

Any number of things can cause a business's ability to attract and keep customers to disappear, and almost all of them are avoidable. It's not easy to stay in business these days because factors change all the time, including changes in customer demands, competition, technology, and much more. But what puts a once-successful enterprise out of business or at a level of less-than-optimum performance is usually one or more missteps that we think we'll never make, but they can happen all too easily to anyone.

The most dangerous threats to your magnetism, your ability to attract business, include a decline in product quality, the assumption that you're “just fine” at the fundamentals (a condition also known as complacency), and becoming irrelevant.

Rave Reviews. Amazing French Food

Here's a blog entry that I posted about a new restaurant that had opened in Nashville:

Last year I read a review of a new French restaurant in Nashville. It's called Chelsea Bistro and it's just way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in a tiny community called Whites Creek. A long, fairly desolate drive. The review was noteworthy in its enthusiasm:

When someone tells you there's a true French bistro—not French-inspired, not Cali-French, but really French—in Whites Creek, and it's superb, don't let your eyebrows leap up, don't draw your head back, and don't say, “Really?” Put a pleasant expression on your face and say, “That sounds wonderful.” Because Chelsea Bistro is wonderful, and it is in Whites Creek.

—Nashville Scene, 10/24/2013

Two weeks later, another review in another publication—same thing. Truly a classic rave review.

So I went. My book publisher was visiting from New York and we made the long, dark drive out of town. We found Chelsea Bistro as one of four tenants of a tiny, crappy looking little strip mall. Our initial reaction was, “You've got to be kidding me.”

After the appetizer (get the clams), our reaction was (in the popular vernacular)…“OMG!” The food was off the hook. Excellent. Even approaching amazing. I loved it.

Since that first visit, I've been back. And back again. And back again. Believe me, it's an effort. “Convenient location” this is not. The ambience is just okay, at best. The service is really good, but there aren't any cute “extras” or contrived “wow” factors.

The staff and managers are charming. The cocktails are original and excellent. Wine list—small but good.

Here's the deal, and here's why the parking lot at that crummy little strip mall is crowded much of the time. It's just the best damn French food.…darn near anywhere. The two rave reviews were right. Chelsea Bistro is worth the drive.

They got the basics right—especially the quality of the food that they serve. It is excellent.

If you want people to be willing to make an effort to do business with you, it's not going to happen (at least not for long) with gimmicks, buzzers, and bells.

Novelties wear off. A classically great beef bourguignon doesn't. Be the best at what matters most.

That restaurant went out of business about year later.

Note the core observation that I made about Chelsea Bistro: They got the basics right—especially the quality of the food that they serve.

I made repeated visits to Chelsea Bistro after I wrote that blog, and the restaurant continued to be absolutely wonderful. Until it wasn't.

It's Not As Good As It Used to Be

I recall the tipping point when, having dinner there with my friend Scott McKain, who was there for the first time, he said, “This is really good.” My reply was, “You know, it's not as good as it used to be.”

I have no idea what happened. Maybe they changed chefs. Maybe financial pressures forced them to use lower-quality ingredients. Maybe they just stopped paying attention.

Whatever the reason, a few weeks later, the restaurant closed.

The lesson is simple and excruciatingly obvious. You cannot let the quality of your performance on the basics slip. Not ever.

This is the danger of chasing “wow” factors. It's all well and good to want to surprise and delight your customers, but if the pursuit of “wow” causes you to take your eye off of the ball (the ball being quality performance on the basics), then you're in trouble.

You can't win on the extras and lose on the basics and expect to survive, much less thrive.

That's Just Table Stakes

In my book, Be the Best at What Matters Most, I mentioned a past client that had nothing but disdain for the idea of getting better at fulfilling their customers' most basic expectations. “That's just table stakes!” they'd say.

Their perception was that they and their competitors were all very good at the basics and that the way to attracting more business (their growth was flat) was through doing “something that would set us apart.”

Through some mystery shopping I did with them, I discovered that they were already setting themselves apart. Their customers were having to wait what seemed like forever to get any service at all. They were losing on the “table stakes” and didn't even realize it.

The Big Lie

Many of us are guilty of telling ourselves the big lie, which is, “We are already really good at the fundamentals.” Okay, let's assume you are. My advice is to get better at those fundamentals, because that's where the game with customers is almost invariably won or lost.

The greater likelihood is that you're not as good at the basics as you think you are, because almost every business book and article we see has the message of winning “on the edges.” The problem is that's not where we win or lose. We win from the “inside out,” meaning that whoever wins on the core customer expectations wins it all. Beyond that, you can certainly enhance your competitive position with extras, but if you are getting beaten on any of the basics, then it's game over, and not in your favor.

Good to Great to Gone

Chelsea Bistro restaurant was a victim of complacency.

My experience in working with thousands of business owners and managers over the past 30 years tells me that there's not a lot of need to discuss the dangers of complacency in terms of everyone understanding the danger. But my experience also tells me that even though we all know that complacency kills businesses, it still remains the chief cause of business failure.

So let me simply say this: if you're thinking, “Sure, complacency is a threat to some businesses, but everything is just fine here,” be afraid. Be very, very afraid, because those have been famous last words in the case of companies like Circuit City.

In his classic book Good to Great, Jim Collins held Circuit City up as being one of the best companies in the world and one whose practices we all should emulate. And Collins was absolutely right. Circuit City was great, until they weren't. The reason that they plummeted downhill was that they thought they had it all figured out. But, as is always the case, the “it” that they had figured out began to change in ways that they either didn't see or simply chose to ignore.

The formula for avoiding death by complacency is simple: Never stop being vigilant about how you need to change. Note that I'm not saying if you need to change. You do. So do I. To stay competitive and magnetic—to keep attracting new business and hang on to the business we already have—we must change. The question is always how to change, not if we should change.