The Blockbuster Effect
Do you remember the video store, Blockbuster? As the world around it changed and the video industry evolved into first, movies by mail and then, streaming, Blockbuster remained more or less the same. Ultimately, they went out of business because they did not evolve. “If we don’t evolve, we die.” I am an individual who happens to crave change and I’m always trying to perfect systems that are more and more efficient. Therefore, by design, I’ve never remained the same.
The Blockbuster Effect is something that we see happening time and time again with big companies that don’t innovate. Innovation isn’t necessarily tech. Innovation is simply change. We need to innovate and evolve. Technology has played a very intricate part of the past 10 years. If you think back to life before the iPhone, (which was 2006) it was very different to what it is today. I personally think the world is a better place for it. I’m sure a lot of people think it’s worse, but anyway, I am the eternal optimist.
Blockbuster was a giant in this space. We all used to go to Blockbuster Stores. It was quite an important part of our lives. Now Blockbuster (and other companies like Toys R Us) has just filed for bankruptcy.
Change Strategies
When we are having success, when we feel that our strategies are going in the right direction, that we’ve got some momentum, we should think, “This is the beginning of the work.”
Whether it be DM-ing through social media, social media video strategies, or going to networking events — whatever your strategy is to find clients to generate business — once it starts working, it’s exciting. And of course, it is — because your strategy is finally working. Here is the dangerous part. The Blockbuster Effect is when we trust that it’s working now and will always work. Blockbuster had the opportunity when they were untouchable. And I remember, sitting in my little house in North Hollywood, watching the Blockbuster Movie Awards — and a little envelope came through my door with a DVD in it and that was Netflix.
I had signed up for Netflix thinking, “Oh wow, this is the future.” Blockbuster, to my great surprise, didn’t really get involved in mailing videos out. And what really hurt them — the thing that took them down — was that they never got involved in streaming, or if they did, I didn’t see anything about it. I’m not a member of Blockbuster, and this is just purely speculation, but this is my opinion of what happened. Blockbuster was huge, they were untouchable. I suspect they sat around saying, “you know what? It’s worked for 10 years. It’s going to keep working. We just need to get over the hump”.
I suspect that Toys R Us said the same thing. I mean, my goodness, there is nothing more eager than a child’s mind and capturing the imagination of that child by coming up with creative ideas — in-store things, out-of-store things, and brand-sponsored events. But again, it seems Toys R Us has remained static. The world has moved around them, but they have remained static. Radio Shack’s situation is similar. For me, a good afternoon was going in a RadioShack and looking at all the little electronics and plastic bags full of transformers, but that’s my own disease. Radio Shack did not evolve. Although in fairness to RadioShack, I think it was a lot harder for them to evolve.
When we are getting success, this is what I urge everyone to do — never stay still.
Never think your strategies that work now will work next year (or the next year). We must constantly keep tweaking them and we must constantly evolve. We must constantly keep an eye on what is happening in the social sphere. 10 years ago, everyone used to advertise in The L.A. Times. I haven’t advertised in The L.A. Times in 10 years and my business has never been hurt. In fact, quite the contrary, the money that I took from The L.A. Times I deployed into social media and it’s served me in spades.
Real estate agents, let’s talk about postcards. Postcards have been a tried and trusted and tested way of capturing sellers in a particular geographic area of Los Angeles. I’m not saying postcards don’t work, but they are very intensive and very expensive. They do work if you have the budget to bombard a neighborhood with marketing. Most agents who are in their first, second, third, or fourth year — or who are not necessarily the top dog in their office — don’t have the budget to break in. Therefore, we must adjust our strategies.
Original Content
This is something that I have been incredibly passionate about and I see things constantly, constantly, constantly changing. “Back in the day” — about 10 years ago — we first talked about blogging. It was a new phenomenon. Then, things got lost over time as more platforms came out. Twitter, Facebook, all of these important platforms and life-changing software events happened. Now, there’s so much noise in our daily life.
How do we break through?
Original content. It can be you in an office, at an open house, or driving around. It just has to be you and it has to be original.
Why is this going to salt the wheat from the chaff? Because 90% of people out there either can’t be bothered to come up with original content. They either don’t believe in original content or don’t have the ability to create it — so those of us who have the ability to create original content should document our days. Get over your fear of the camera or, if you want to be behind the camera and do original content, create fantastic blog pieces that you can push out onto social media.
Here is where I see the death warrant of a lot of people in our industry getting signed: relying on the media your company provides you. If that’s all you’re putting out into the world and how you show who you are professionally, I believe it is the beginning of the end. That is the Blockbuster Effect. If it doesn’t have your thumbprint on it, if it isn’t you, and it isn’t about you, and it’s generic — I believe people that put out that type of content will fall into the same categories as Blockbuster, RadioShack and Toys R Us.
Innovation doesn’t necessarily mean technology. It can be the written word. It can be going on Medium and writing posts, or it can be doing videos. Whether you’re behind the camera or in front of the camera, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s authentic, vulnerable, and original content where people can see a 360-degree version of who you are.
That’s how you attract your tribe.
