In business, consumer trends are key to making strategic decisions around representing your brand, creating a product ecosystem, taking your business to market through channels, and helping you determine what campaigns to run.
There are 8 key trends currently in motion. The top 3 trends are Profit-led to Purpose-led, Silo to Integrated Solutions and Consumerism to Conscious Consumption.
When a business can see the trends, they can also see the market gaps and position themselves into that gap.
It takes between 9 and 18 months to develop and implement a strategy in the market. Therefore, if a business waits for the trend to be proven by others, it will be 9 to 18 months behind the market.
According to trends specialist @LinziBoyd, trends are broken and recreated by 3% of the market and then solidified by the influencers who make up 15% of the market. Once these entrepreneurs enter the market, there is enough evidence for everyone else to follow, being the mainstream, representing 35% of the market. The rest will follow over time and reluctantly change their business models.
Let's look at the trend from Profit-Led to Purpose-Led
Many people talk about purpose being our Why. This idea was put into the mainstream by Simon Sinek in his book, 'Start with Why'.
Businesses must start with their Who' and then work out their Why. As human beings and business owners, we start our businesses to serve. We create authentic purpose-led connections when we connect to who we are here to serve and the purpose behind that service. Those businesses aware of their core capability, their intangible asset, and can align their asset behind their Who and Why, are the ones that will create the greatest impact and success over the coming years.
To give context to this massive trend, we can look to history for the answer.
Before the 1700s, we were born into a local community where we lived most of our lives, and that was the extent of the world we experienced. Only those with what we term today as entrepreneurial spirit, ventured out to explore the world.
To travel safely across our oceans, plot a position and set a safe course, we needed a system for navigation. Before the 1700's latitude was charted using the sun and stars as guides. It wasn't until the creation of the Harrison clock that the seafaring explorers had a consistent method for measuring their location with any accuracy or confidence. In the mid-1700s, the world changed, and travel on mass for peaceful purposes became possible because longitude was successfully charted.
Prior to longitude being calculated with any accuracy, there were many sea wrecks and lives lost due to the miscalculation of where a ship was located. Once longitude was discovered, the sea became a safe passage for many to join in on exploring and expanding the human race.
Skip forward, and growth accelerated in the 1900s with the industrial revolution and steam as a major energy source. People started to move across countries and migrate to other countries, resulting in an exponential expansion of the global population.
Humans innovated in leaps and bounds with print, steam train and ocean travel in the late 1800s; with electricity, radio and the automobile in the early 1900s; the space race gave us satellites and television in the mid-1900s and then the internet went mainstream in the late 1900s.
All this innovation has led us to mass consumerism and the emphasis on success and the material possessions we acquire. While I love my material possessions, many like me realise that material possessions are not what this game of life is about. We have other needs, and when we explore these needs, we can create the holistic success and life we desire.
As entrepreneurs, we have additional needs like an itch we need to scratch – the need to connect, explore and expand.
In the 1700-the 1900s, our needs focused on the material world. In the 2000s, many have started looking more and more to the spiritual world for connection and expansion. There is a more commonly held belief that we create the whole of our reality; we can create almost anything we want when we learn how to navigate ourselves within the world.
The first navigation point is to connect with who we are here to serve, our purpose, and why we are here. Combining this with our core asset (our difference) and our skill and capability, we have our first navigation point for growing a successful 21st-century business.
As entrepreneurs, it is our role to provide a structure for others to come and work with us, people who align with our purpose and who, like us, want to make a difference in the world.
Through our expansion after the industrial revolution and the need to feed and supply the masses, we have damaged our planet.
With a new construct of purpose over profit, we will be able to make a difference in the world and evolve for the benefit of all.
So how do we do that?
Human beings have always lived and thrived in communities. It's in communities that we connect, learn and trade together. Religion has played a critical role in humankind's success by giving meaning, fulfilment and structure to our lives. We connected to spirit and gave meaning to our lives through the product of religion. However, with global expansion, the advent of the material world, and mass access to information at the touch of a screen, religion for many has lost its appeal.
The common need for fulfilment, meaning and structure is now driving the purpose-led revolution, and it's the entrepreneurs, as always, who lead the way.
What's driving the next revolution in business, as a result of Covid, is the need for connection and learning beyond the material and the need to trade safely together – in communities. As a result of our technological advancements, we can now fulfil these needs both on and offline.
The key to every expansion is to have a navigation system that provides safe passage.
Tim Dwyer is a business growth expert specialising in helping businesses strategically grow their assets, increase their business value, and improve their capabilities.
