Is Your Baby Ugly

That's a great kind of commitment. But sometimes that adoration blinds us. Our fresh new baby ages, gets wrinkled and dull. Our best selling product of yesterday no longer serves today's market. Sure, some customers still adore it. Why wouldn't they? They probably have a vested interest as well.

Holding onto products that have passed their prime is a key reason companies falter.

It's hard to let go of something we've poured our energy into for years, even decades. That's true personally as well as in business. But quite often, that's exactly what we need to do to make forward progress.

Case in Point.

Take a look at the companies that are struggling all around us, right now. The first thing you probably thought was something like "Well, that's the economy's fault." Maybe. But look more closely.

You'll find that many of these companies held on to their way of doing business, their favorite products (and customers for those products) for far too long. Want an easy example? GM. GM held onto the gas guzzling, or certainly gas-powered, vehicles that were its legacy even as competitors were successfully introducing Hybrids. Did any of us NOT see that mistake in the making? Yet GM couldn't, or wouldn't, see that its approaches were growing old and tired. They kept making incremental changes, rather than creating a new generation of vehicles to match the changing market dynamics.

Other examples? Look at the iPhone as the new pretty baby, with everyone else caught flat-footed holding onto old concepts of cell phones and PDAs. Or how about Microsoft and Sony (with their traditional joy stick consoles) watching as Nintendo's Wii captured the hearts of young and old - and flew past them in the market? The list can go on and on. Yes, Apple and Nintendo were innovators. But the door for innovation was flung wide open by competitors who were complacently holding onto their aging product concepts.

A client had been selling this whizbang system for almost a decade. They claimed it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, the only one of its kind - the power behind their future. Yet when we looked closely, they were starting to lose money on nearly every sale of this same system. Yes, it had a unique and quite valuable capability. The problem wasn that only a tiny segment of their market could actually use that capability. And that segment was shrinking. When we pointed this out - well, the words fell on the ears of deaf parents. The company couldn't see the reality of their situation - that system was unique, but noone cared anymore. The company finally went bankrupt a while back. And they were still holding onto that system, spending money on it 'til the very end.

Change is hard. Let me repeat that in a different way. We fear change. It's tough to take a step out into a new world and leave the known behind. But that's exactly what companies have to do, if they want to continue to soar.

I'm not saying that every legacy product is an ugly baby. Just look at Kleenex - it's been around forever and just keeps going. What I am saying is that we need to look objectively at our favorite products and their value - to our customers and our prospects. We may just need a new offering that's more in sync with today's markets. That's okay. We can leverage the power of our current products to create better and brighter opportunities.

Let your ugly babies go, gracefully and gratefully. Keeping them alive can cost you money, resources and ultimately, your business success.