Predictions for 2017
After peeking into the crystal ball for a few minutes, here’s what jumps out.
The growth of the mystery story. It’s referenced in Robert Cialdini’s new book, Pre-Suasion, and brands will latch on to it in 2017. It’s an old storytelling technique, but the reason it will become more prevalent is because it’s been codified and Cialdini is more widely read than ever.
It was explained nicely in Chip & Dan Heath’s, Made to Stick in 2007. “[Cialdini] would begin with a question that had no obvious answer (like, ‘What are the rings of Saturn made of?’), and then proceed in a police like investigation. Examine available evidence, pursue promising leads, hit dead ends, follow up on new clues and apply deductive reasoning. Eventually a breakthrough is achieved which leads to a discovery. Only then will the answer to the original question revealed.”
Expect to be hit over the head with “questions that have no obvious answer” followed by the answer, next year.
A renewed focus on recruiting. This has been bubbling up over the last 18 months because six straight years of private sector job growth has brought unemployment down to the point where your best employees are prairie dogging from their offices and looking at other opportunities. Turnover is a good thing in most businesses, assuming they don’t lose their best employees. The way to prevent that is to treat your recruiting pipeline like a sales pipeline and monitor it.
Build the bench. Important in 2017.
Sales training as a communication skill. Speaking of sales pipelines, persuasion as a basic communication skill will continue to be emphasized in 2017. We’re born persuaders, but it’s driven out of us on our path to adulthood to the point where we think we could never be in sales and ignore selling skills. This one is coded as “business writing” and “decision making” but make no mistake, it’s selling.
It’s important for two reasons, one is that as the techniques of master persuaders are turned into robot algorithms, if you don’t recognize the tactics and techniques being used, you’re going to lose control of your decision process. Second, once you learn these skills, you can use them to capture more of the value you’re producing in the marketplace.
As Dan Pink says in his book, To Sell is Human, the Census Bureau measures one in nine of us is in sales, but if you dig deeper, so are the other eight.
More pushback on the robots. The rise of automation continues to put pressure on the human species, but that shouldn’t only bring despair. If you’re faced with what looks like an indisputable truth, remember that its opposite is also going to be true. There will be a rise in non-automated, fully human experiences too. I see it popping up in movements like Everyday Carry, the Maker Movement, and Farm to Table restaurants.
It’s important because contrary to the feeling of loss associated to automation, the economic pie is getting bigger. As we rely more on the robots, we’ll be more impressed with human skills. As an ex-high school principal said as we looked at a table of young people staring into their phones, “One day, someone is going to write a book about the joy of uninterrupted face-to-face conversation . . . and they’ll think they invented it.”
That’s what the crystal ball revealed.
Wondering how I did in 2016? 50%.
Forecasting: predicted the firms that forecast better will be more valuable. Saw it happen in a client’s business valuation in an “exit” and saw it’s opposite come true in a client “re-structure” . . . but not sure how it played in the rest of the world. Neutral.
Pricing: predicted a new emphasis on value based pricing away from hourly billing. I’m still way off on this. It’s too entrenched and will probably require outsiders coming in to make it happen. Miss.
Niches: predicted more concierge health care in the wake of ACA and saw it stumble out of the gate. It turns out that concierge health care is like organic cotton tshirts. Everyone says, “I want that,” but their pocket books don’t reflect it. Instead, we saw success in marketing concierge health care but couldn’t charge for it, so a hybrid developed. Think of it like a tag that says “Certified Organic (contains at least 10% organic fibers),” which costs barely more than a regular tshirt. That’s what’s happening. Neutral here too.
That adds up to 50%.
Good stuff.