The Two Reasons People Change

People change for only two reasons; they want to or have to. Unfortunately that means many people who maybe should change don’t. My father-in-law will never buy a General Motors product. Never! His reasoning is sound based on his past negative experience with two General Motors vehicles. The challenge however is that he thinks about the General Motors of the 80s as the General Motors of today. Even though the company now is very different then the company he last did business with over two decades ago, it isn’t to him. Ultimately it’s his choice, as it is all of ours to feel anyway we want about anything. Frankly I don’t care what he drives or how others choose to think. But what I do think is far too many people let events of their past taint their choices for the future. Agreed? What happened yesterday may or may not be relevant for what’s happening now, yet more often than not it plays a large role in how all of us make choices. Sometimes events of the past, prevent us from making the best choices for our future.

As an owner of my own company I realize that my entrepreneur’s survival is 100% reliant on whether people choose to change or not. NO amount of marketing and good will get someone to buy my products if they don’t want to or don’t have to.This is an exceedingly challenging proposition for me to deal with. On the heels of our biggest marketing and public relations coup, our Pond Stars reality television series, I’ve been putting on a full-court press to get new contractors and retailers into the Aquascape fold. For the most part my efforts have been met with minimal success. Why? People only change when they want to or have to. Most people are comfortable doing things the way they always have even when a better or more opportunitive alternative is available. Why is this and how does someone like me, who at the very least believes he has a better mouse trap, get through to the masses? At this point I think there is little hope of overcoming a non-Aquascape customer’s perceptions, real or perceived, on why they won’t do business with my organization. That doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying, it just goes back to people being set in their ways.

Since I’ve determined that many people won’t change even if changing will help them, I’ve come up with my own plan to get them to do what may be better for them but they just can’t pull the trigger on for themselves. This September I’m taking to the airwaves with our reality series Pond Stars and showing the world what we’ve been developing for the last 23 years. And then we will leave it up to the world to decide if it still thinks ponds are a lot of work! Today the world wants concrete shells versus liner, and waterfalls made of stacked stones reaching high into the sky and spewing water like volcano spews lava. Oh my breaking heart! Since this is the way the majority of water features are built today, there are plenty of contractors more than happy to build it for them. Today. But when we showcase beautiful, low maintenance water features installed with 20 products in 20 steps, maybe just maybe, we can change the public paradigm for ponds once and for all. Then people will ask their contractor or their retailer if they could have a pond “just like the one they saw on TV.” When this occurs their contractor or retailer will be forced to change with the changing paradigm or go the way of the dinosaur. And “Ponds Done Right, Customers Served Right” will no longer be the exception but rather the rule. That’s the kind of change I’m after. That’s the kind of change that’s good!