The AI Crash is coming. The only thing we don’t know is how bad it’s going to be. Regardless, this time will be no different from Black Monday, the Dot Com Bust, or the 2008 Financial Crisis in that regardless of how bad it is, business must go on (or modern society won’t). That means we will need organizations to lead, and for that to happen, they need to start taking the lead now.
The solution today is essentially no different than the solution we we gave vendors for getting out of the 2008 Financial crisis:
- continued new product development
- continued spending on marketing and thought leadership (NOT AI HYPE)
- continued workforce development
- continued process improvement
Except the key now is to focus on real value and real capability, not BS AI just to cash in on the hype before the crash (and definitely not hallucinatory LLMs where they should never, ever, ever be used).
New Product Development
New product development that focusses on providing customers a better solution to their problems or a better fit for their desires at a great price point demonstrates:
- you’re a well-run company and a little market hiccup (even if it is a deafening belch) is not going to hold you back
- you realize new competitors are still entering the market every day with innovations of their own and the only way to provide lasting value is to continue to improve your solutions
- you know the only way to make things better is to keep going, and
- you take a level-headed approach to business with a plan to be around for the long haul
Marketing & Thought Leadership
Having the best product in the world is a moot point if no one knows it exists! This doesn’t mean you go crazy and overspend like you tend to do in a peak business year, just that you take the percentage of your budget you’d normally spend and spend it … wisely. Focussing on channels most likely to hit your target market still able, or willing, to spend, and you focus on core value and when you want to differentiate your offering, especially in high-tech or services, you focus on thought-leadership, not hype!
Marketing lets your potential customers know that you’re here for the long haul and still developing solutions that will help them lower costs, increase productivity, and maybe get out of this mess quicker. It’s also the only way to establish you as a market leader, which is key to not only being remembered when a customer has the budget, but getting the visit, request, and/or sale.
The reality is that, if you don’t market, you’re out of sight. If you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind. If you’re out of mind, you’re NOT being sought out when the customer has money.
Workforce Development
Your success all comes down to your people. Companies don’t build products … people build products. Companies don’t design winning marketing campaigns … people design winning marketing campaigns. Companies don’t think … people are the thought leaders. And if your budget is tight, you shouldn’t be adding too many bodies … when you need to add effective brainpower. And you do that by developing the staff you already have. (Which does NOT include giving them hallucinatory LLM access.)
If we’re truly moving in a knowledge and innovation economy, then you’re going to get a lot more out of educated, experienced, well-trained staff than just a body in a chair or cognitive atrophied idiots prompting hallucinatory Gen-AI LLMs that tell them to add rocks and strawberries-with-two-r’s to the mix.
The best developers can be 20 times as productive as an average developer (and can now produce a high quality, highly secure, new app at a lower cost than AI with current computing costs). The best inventors can produce 10 times as many inventions. The best thought leaders can produce market-changing ideas where an average person just produces refinements that might not even get noticed at all. Relatively speaking, if you’ve paid just a bit more to hire top talent, a few dollars on training can lead to a few thousand in productivity gains.
Process Improvement
Bring in an expert to do a complete review of your development, delivery, and operational processes to find opportunities for improvement that you won’t notice when buried in day-to-day operations.
This lowers your costs, which allows you to lower your prices, which allows you to grab more market share. You don’t necessarily have to hire a McKinsey Partner at 15K a day either … there are plenty of niche consultants who can jump in, do a focussed assessment, and net you great results for 5K a day in a couple of weeks … paying for themselves almost immediately.