By Doug Stephens<\/p>\n

For the holidays I took my friends, clients and business colleagues cookies.\u00a0 I bought them from a small coffee house and bakery in Toronto called Le Gourmand<\/a> \u2013 who are (as I learned) renowned for making the best cookies in the city.\u00a0 And they certainly lived up to that reputation.\u00a0 Within hours of delivering them (and that is no exaggeration) I was getting emails and messages like these:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI have just finished the best cookie I think I\u2019ve ever eaten in my life!!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cSome of our crew members were wondering where you got the cookies that you brought in last night. They were REALLY good! Where did you find them \u2013 or did you make them?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cThanks so much for the INCREDIBLE cookies.\u00a0 Wow. Out of this world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Even my daughter who took some cookies to friends later that day was receiving the same sorts of questions. Here\u2019s her message to me\u2026.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over and over, people raved about these cookies.\u00a0 No one asked if there were cheaper cookies somewhere else.\u00a0 No one was scrounging for coupons or discounts. \u00a0No one compared them to something from a box in a grocery store. Price and inconvenience were no barrier to people\u2019s desire for these cookies! \u00a0They were just mind-blowingly awesome.<\/p>\n

And herein lies an important lesson for all businesses…<\/p>\n

In a hyper-connected, data driven world where the consumer has every one of your competitors at their fingertips, there\u2019s a new and daunting reality; a sickening imperative that most businesses either cannot or will not allow themselves to embrace. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s this:\u00a0 The days of making an inferior product and managing to live off the excess demand in the marketplace are over!\u00a0 The era of pushing mediocre products by buying more ad words, \u00a0intrusive advertising or \u00a0fallacious promotion than your competitor are coming to an end too.<\/p>\n

No matter what you sell or whom you sell it to, there’s only one way to win. You need to get up everyday and make the best cookies in the city.\u00a0 The rest will look after itself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Look for my book, The Retail Revival: Reimagining Business in the New Age of Consumerism<\/a>, in stores February 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Doug Stephens For the holidays I took my friends, clients and business colleagues cookies.\u00a0 I bought them from a small coffee house and bakery in [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72,245,24,49],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-customer-experience","tag-le-gourmand","tag-retail","tag-sales"],"yoast_head":"\n