The Choice: Go Purple or Go Home
March 19th, 2009 by Jeb Foster
Every day, a plant or animal species quietly goes extinct. The same goes for professions. Take wainwrights, for example.
Back in the day, when people traveled by horse-drawn wagon, they paid wainwrights to keep their wagons and carriages rolling smoothly. Henry Ford’s Model T forced these specialists to find new work.
Ice cutting—that’s another line of work that fell victim to advancing technology (refrigeration). Paid journalists may be the next to face extinction, their demise hastened by bloggers who write for nothing. Closer to home, Seth Godin mused recently on the disappearance of agents:
Travel agents… gone.
Stock brokers… gone.
Real estate brokers… in trouble. Photographer’s agents, too.
Literary agents?The problem with being a helpful, efficient but largely anonymous middleman is pretty obvious. Someone can come along who is cheaper, faster and more efficient. And that someone might be the customer aided by a computer.
Let’s face it: each year, more consumers get comfortable buying insurance online, directly from the source and without meeting an agent first. That’s the harsh truth. But does that mean that the insurance agent will go the way of the wainwright? Not necessarily, but for insurance agents to stay in the game, they’ve got the raise their game. Godin:
Middlemen add value when they bring taste or judgment or trust to bear on a transaction that isn’t transparent. … To thrive in a world of self-service, agents have to hyperspecialize, have to stand for something, have to have the guts to say no far more than they say yes. No, you can’t publish this book. No I won’t represent you. No, don’t take that flight. No, I won’t sell this house, it’s overpriced, list it yourself. [Emphasis added]
One of the most important concepts that Seth Godin has popularized is the need to be remarkable—as remarkable as a ‘purple cow’ standing in a field of ordinary brown cows. (If you haven’t read Godin’s book “Purple Cow,” buy it from Amazon.)
If there ever was a time to be purple purple, for insurance agents, this is it.
- Bonus link: Wikipedia’s list of defunct occupations
