Transactional vs. Relational

A friend sent an audio link I thought you would also enjoy. The speaker shares the new challenge Starbucks is encountering. The competition is peeling off 20% of their base, people who are willing to buy good coffee for a lower price without the atmosphere.

Has Starbuck's reached saturation among those who prefer relationship over the transaction?

What should their next move be?

Have some of your leading products or services reached their peak now competing with adequate alternatives, even if yours is still superior?

Here is the short audio clip from "The Monday Morning Memo" that will send you thinking. Even if this blog isn't in the normal mindshift mode - that too is a mindshift. Click here to listen: The Glass Ceiling.

A friend and I were talking about Starbuck's creation of "the third place," that place between work and home you like to hang out at. What does it mean for them to now have drive through's? Or, sticking a Starbuck's in at the local grocery store.

Is that like creating a 2.5 space? Is that the place between work and home you kind of go to but would never hang out at and still pay $3 for a cup of coffee?

Whoa - what does this mean? If someone as omniscient as Starbuck's can get caught up in the "its about our great product" delusion - what does that mean for the rest of us mere mortals?

Repeat after me. "My 2008 resolution; I have to be more than my product."