If you ever want to find a whole boat of opposing viewpoints, skip politics and just Google “Reinvent the wheel“.

After you read the definition, “wasting time by starting from scratch…”, you’ll find that words and the meaning behind them matters.

For today, my focus is on your business model and marketing.

My radio station, WOWO is now 90 year old.  We have made changes as the world made changes.  However WOWO began and continues to broadcast on the AM radio band. Originally WOWO was at 1320 AM in 1925.  A few changes took place until 1941 when WOWO moved to their permanent home at 1190AM.  But these kind of changes are not “reinventing the wheel” changes.

Facebook launched a dozen years ago and became the most successful social media site ever.  It was not the first, but it did replace MySpace as the dominate social media site.  You can debate whether or not Mark and his Facebook buddies “reinvented the wheel” or just made it “rounder”.

Smartphones “reinvented the wheel” in my opinion, but it was an ongoing process of technology that moved us from just talking to adding text messaging, to email via a Blackberry and finally iPhones.

Back to your business and marketing… Before you decide to throw out the old, “reinvent the wheel” and start with a new business or marketing model, you need to really ask why you are considering this and what you are wanting to accomplish. q

If your business is seeing a decline in sales or revenue or profit, you need to know what needs fixing before you scrap the current “wheel”.

If you believe your advertising is not producing the same results that you believe you were getting in years past, take the time to investigate instead of making quick reactionary moves.

Recently I was meeting with an upcoming advertising partner who wants a new website.  I asked him why, and he has a pretty good handle on some things and I will offer assistance on others.  The week before, I met with a friend who also wants to scrap his website, but as we talked, I learned that there were some cosmetic changes and function changes he wanted to include.  He probably doesn’t need to “reinvent the wheel”, and start over,  he just needs to make some adjustments.

Now sometimes you do need to get rid of the old.  Updates and Upgrades are a part of life.

I lead off with the question, Do You Need To Reinvent the Wheel?

The answer is: It Depends.

It depends on how well what you offer matches what people want to buy.

It depends on if the methods you are using to invite people to buy from you are still effective methods, given the changes in our world.

Want help figuring this out?  Let’s meet.