What business are we in?
I’d like to share a quick story with you—a story about answering the question “what business are we in?”
Eighteen years ago I was in Chicago with my father, and we visited a cousin of his. Like my father, Eduardo was an immigrant from Mexico who had come to the United States in search of a better life.
Eduardo had done quite well for himself and we visited him in his very nice home in Evanston, just outside Chicago.
When I asked my father what Eduardo did for a living, he said, “He sells candy.” In fact, he had several candy stores throughout the area that specialized in selling candy imported from Mexico to the large Mexican and Central American population in the area.
At one point during the evening, I said to him, “I’m impressed. I didn’t realize you could do so well selling candy.”
He looked at me and said “I don’t sell candy… I sell nostalgia.”
Wow. In that moment, I realized the power of understanding what business we are truly in.
I’ve shared this story with the OneRhythm team over the years, because it has such a great impact on our mindset. Sure, on the surface OneRhythm is in the business of selling memberships for cultural organizations—which we do quite well!
But the reason we succeed is because we understand that we are actually in the business of building community—the community of supporters who make possible our clients’ missions to increase access to world-class art, important scientific discoveries, and our shared history.
Cultural organizations like yours are essential community gathering places, where people from all walks of life can come to learn and be uplifted by knowledge, beauty, and each other. That’s important. And that’s why we love what we do.
So I encourage you to ask yourself: what business are we truly in? And let the answer guide your decisions and put you in the proper mindset to succeed.
We’d like to help you develop that mindset. That’s why I’m inviting you to spend an hour with me on a complimentary Discovery Call. A Discovery Call is just as the name implies. You talk to me, in confidence. I offer my observations on how to help your true business—however you define it—succeed. There’s no obligation, only insights from an agency that specializes in membership marketing for major cultural organizations.
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