Hello my name is Gary Shotton and I’m happy to be here with you again as a part of Inspiring Better Business. And we’re here to encourage you to do business in a way that will improve continually improve and today we’re going to talk about the old and the new. And in this I want to summarize that we all should be looking to have continual improvement and doing our research that’s where this lesson fits with so well you see if you’re doing continual research and you’re doing continual improvement then you’re going to find new things all the time.

But I’m going to talk about how the old things of time fit well and how you’ve got to be careful not to do away with the old, but also introduce new on a continuing basis well first of all we got to recognize that every year we’re all getting older I know I don’t look like it but I am and so are you and so what was interesting to you or your generation may not be so interesting to the next generation or even the third generation down you see I have teenage grand-kids and what interesting is interesting to me is not necessarily and probably not that interesting to them so if I’m going to reach the market that I’m after I’ve got to be aware of who that market is and that even if I know who the market is that it’s continually changing it’s continually aging now when we’re looking at the products or services that you’re introducing to your customers you’ve got to continually evaluate what is the best product or service that I can present and what would I consider my core might consist of the thing that I always had have requests for and how often should I introduce news so thus the title the old and the new.

Let’s take a restroom you maybe in one particular sector I recommend that rather than just all genres of food to all people but kind of zero in on something and inside that you probably have a signature dish something that got you started something that people are always interested in your favorite your highest seller well of course you wouldn’t want to do away with that that’s an old thing that as long as it stays as a high seller whether it’s a product or service let’s say at your restaurant then hold on to that keep it don’t mess with it but you should also be looking at introducing new things on a regular consistent basis not too often maybe once every six months once a year so your menu should start changing here’s the things that have been selling very well on the restaurant and here’s the things that are now introduced as a new idea a new flavor a new dish same things true.

Let’s say with the hair saloon we call it salons some people call it saloon and basically the new hair styles I’ve been in Africa and I’ve seen on the wall is pictures of hairstyles that are coming into the new thing so you wouldn’t do away with the old hairstyle because someone especially an older person is not going to be very excited about a new style but the new generation is going to want to know what’s up what’s the best what’s new what’s interesting.

Same thing with clothes so anybody in the clothes industry knows they’ve got to be rolling out new and interesting products and at the same time depending on the market keep some of the old now one of the easiest ways for me to describe this is right here near my town right where I’m sitting is a ice cream factory well they have their very standard flavors old-fashioned vanilla apparently is one of their longest lasting make sense vanilla but they’ll not mess with that they’ll not change that but their every single year they’re rolling out about five or suit six new flavors though new flavors have been tested in some kind of a test market and they have been introduced at a small scale and they have many stores so they can roll it out into the bigger stores with a new flavor usually a pretty catchy name on that flavor and then also some color some kind of a covering this makes it distinguishable maybe a blue ice cream or red ice cream thus they’re rolling in new things well let’s talk about.

Even styles in homes if you’re building homes then you need to be up on what the new style what’s the news trend I can walk into a home that’s been built in let’s say the 1980’s and I can tell you that it was built in the 1980’s because that’s the look the outside and the inside but if it’s made new or different then there’s a new look.

To it all of this goes on almost every product in the service so if you’re in business you’ve got to be tuned into this and making changes on a regular basis here’s where your groups come in our peer groups you have now a consortium of individuals that are willing if they’re interested in your best to give you their personal honest opinion so if you had ice cream you could bring your flavors there and say hey what do you think of these flavors of ice cream or if you had a new menu item at the restaurant cook it for your friends or you’re baking cakes make a new modification don’t give up you’re old but here’s your new.

Well how does that apply to me as an owner of a machine shop I’m sitting here in my machine shop and in just a couple days this robot this sitting right behind us is going to be feeding those two machines and that’s a new thing now we had to introduce this in a way that our workers didn’t think they’re being replaced they’re not but it’s going to be much more efficient we are doing what we tell you to do well I’m constantly evaluating what is the best new thing that fits my shop that I can make a profit from buying this robot and be much more efficient I’m not doing away with a person but it is taking the place of at least one or two machinist I just need those machinist in an Area C we’re short on labor.

So I’m following my same advice I’m not giving up the old parts the old way we’re doing it but am I the inner always introducing something new I if you’re working for my company you’re going to know that I’m always pressing the envelope just a little bit I’m always saying hey can’t we do this better give me some new ideas we actually have our tooling the people that sell us the cutting tips we have them in our shop regularly we invite them and they like to come here because they say here’s the newest design in a drill bit or the newest design and a tip that does the cutting and we’re going to show you that this is well worth you’re going to pay twice as much money oh I don’t want to pay twice as much money where I can buy this old cheaper one know if that drill bit or that tool will last five or ten times live longer I can afford to pay twice as much you understand so continue our research continual improvement I just can’t tell you enough how important it is to continue to stay on top of your field of the industry and if you don’t you’ll find yourself left behind.

Well I hope these help I hope this inspires better business.  Thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.