On Santa Monica Blvd There Is A Capital One Café

What will it take for you to move your business into the future?

Yes, Capital One, who is offering free Wi-Fi, local coffee and food, and complimentary money coaching. They want to attract the 80 million Millennials and think this is their advantage in getting to know them. 

Millennials now bank online, manage their money online and don’t see a good reason to go to a bank’s branch office. In fact, a survey by Scratch says they don’t trust traditional banks and 75% say they'd be more excited by a financial offering from Google, Apple, PayPal, or Square over their nationwide bank. 

Brick & mortar stores everywhere should pay attention. With the imminent demise of Sears and Kmart, and many department stores at risk – retailers of all kinds, especially supermarkets, who have felt that the technology culture wouldn’t have an effect on them, need to wake up.  

No matter what kind of business you are in, its all about relationships. That’s all you’ve got. Traditional trade shows need to look at SxSW for the future. Banks need to look at Capital One. Supermarkets need to look at Amazon. There’s no doubt that the business worlds and the consumers they serve have changed. What will it take for you to move your business into the future? It’s a question you should be asking yourself each day -- before a survey is published that says that the under 35 year olds would prefer to buy their foods from companies that might not even exist yet – except for Amazon of course.

Ask your consumers what they want and how they want it – and you might be surprised. It’s probably not price – the model that so many of our supermarkets still lay the foundation of its businesses on.