Monday, March 28, 2011

Why Facebook and Google are Doomed!

Ever try to call Google or Facebook and get a real person to answer your call? Won't happen. It's not their business model. In fact, it is the antithesis of their business model.

I tried calling Google several times, maybe even 20 times, only to be referred to a website or an email; never heard from them again.

And then it hit me. These very companies whose aim it is to connect people, facts and fiction and to communicate with the world are doing one S*#@*y job of connecting with me or letting me connect with them. I want a real person to whom I can speak. Why is that so hard for them to do?

In addition to it not being in their DNA, they simply can't afford to be able to answer questions from millions and millions of users globally. What would you do if everybody was your market. And I do mean everybody!!

With 35 billion emails being sent, everyday, via the Internet and with these two companies having the lion's share of this market, how could they possible answer all the calls. It's near impossible...or is it?

And then I knew that the end is near for Google.

Larry Page, who has taken over the CEO position again, is now stating that his job is to get the 24,000 Google employees to make decisions quicker and act more like a "start up." He has set down rules such as: "All proposals have to be pitched in 60 seconds or less." "Supervisors were to cut their project list in half and then half again." And so on...

Trouble is with all his edicts he missed CEO 101.

First rule of CEO 101 has always been to get out and speak to the customers. Find out what they want. And no where was this mentioned in his "Page Manifesto." Sure Google and Facebook have lots of stats and can tell YOU what YOU want, but who is out talking to people and getting some qualitative data instead of all quantitative information.

No where. All of Mr. Page's focus appears to be on the internal structuring of his company, without ever mentioning the customer. Yikes!

Now this may be an exaggeration and I don't suspect Google or Facebook to go out of business anywhere soon, but if you take this example to our bowling center levels, how hard would it be for us to lose customers if we didn't listen to them and find out all we could so we could give them what they wanted.

Pretty easy, I think.