Butterflies Beat Predators. Every time.
The business world is often compared to a jungle, where predators are lurking, waiting to ambush their prey. For many business owners, this is precisely the strategy for success. They lay traps with tempting offers to lure clients to their lair, be it a shop, an office, or a landing page, and viciously bite off a piece of meat, or money, whichever is easier.
While this strategy has been around for hundreds of years, the concept has significantly changed over the past 50 years. The business is the predator, and the customer is the prey. In this case, I’d like to perceive myself and my business as nothing less than Arnold Schwarzenegger, trying to stand up to the predator all covered in mud and, against all odds, to beat it at its own game. Sure I lack the muscles and the admittedly sexy accent, yet here the battle is less physical and more philosophical.
I never look at my potential customers as prey, no matter how delicious and mouthwatering tasty they look or how fat their wallets are. If you want to find a one-time buyer whom you can shake off for a quick buck and never see them again, sure, go ahead. You will have a pretty stable business until the word spreads around. And with today’s connectivity and all kinds of platforms that share people’s experiences with others, who are potentially your future customers, you will be lucky to survive for a year or two. In this age of communication, the whole concept should be different if you strive for success.
I prefer to see my customers, or better yet, my business partners, like butterflies. There are businesses out there that go out with nets and try to catch the butterflies and forcefully and put them in a jar. But a far better alternative is to make them come to you. How do you do that? It’s easier than taking candy from a baby.
In all seriousness, I’ve never understood this comparison. Have you ever tried taking candy from a baby just as it’s trying to eat it? It’s quite tricky, actually. They put a feisty resistance, throwing everything they got at you, to save the thing they want to put in their mouth. They kick, and scream, and bite, and scratch. In the end, they don’t surrender it peacefully, but instead, they throw it at you. It’s easier to take candy from an adult than a baby.
So yes, it’s as easy as taking candy from an adult. It takes some effort, undoubtedly, but the end justifies the means. All you need to do is to create a garden full of flowers, full of water and green grass, which will attract the most beautiful, most colourful, and best-looking butterflies out there. The goal isn’t to chase them with a net and force them down a funnel into a jar so that they will convert eventually under pressure or simply die. What if we make our product or service so attractive, that they will come dozens of times, they will bring other butterflies and throw a wild butterfly party, which I would be fluttering rapidly from flower to flower. A garden is not a funnel but an open field, from which any butterfly is free to fly away. Despair not. If your garden is the one with the most beautiful flowers, they will come back, and they will be ready to spend more time in it and probably never leave simply because they have no reason to.
When you are the predator, and you are chasing a prey, whether it’s a B2B or B2C customer, you are investing just as much time, energy, and resources as you would in creating this extraordinary garden where all beautiful butterflies will fly to you. The only difference is that the latter brings more customers, and they invite all their butterfly family, cousins, and friends to join the party.
As a bonus, Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t appear covered in mud, bringing with him your demise.
Mukesh Manik is the Chief Disruptor at UnCanvas, a marketing company that loves to generate customers on demand for Business Owners & Entrepreneurs
