Wall Street, David Blaine, and You
What do David Blaine and Wall Street have in common? They’re both great at creating illusions. Unfortunately, Wall Street believed the illusion it created (the value of subprime mortgages) was real. Companies do the same thing every day, convincing themselves that if they have more customers and higher revenues then everything will keep going up, even if they don’t spend the time understanding customers and providing great service.
We’re seeing now exactly what happens when greed and lack of accountability take hold within an industry. The safeguards weren’t in place to prevent Wall Street firms from going under. By building a relationship with customers, you can keep that from happening to you. It may not be subprime mortgages that cause the downfall, but if customers lose confidence the way investors have lost confidence, they’re just as likely to abandon you in droves.
Don’t buy into the illusion that customers will keep spending more and more money and everything will keep going up. Wall Street is learning how dangerous that can be. David Blaine may appear to have taken the same risks, but as a professional illusionist you can be sure he had safeguards in place in case anything went wrong. In the tough economic times to come, customers will look for service and value when they choose which companies to do business with. Now’s a good time to make sure they won’t vanish when you’re not paying attention.
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