Traditions

The holidays will be here before we know it, and it has me thinking about traditions.

The ritual of carving the turkey at Thanksgiving, the scent of a pine tree in the living room, a quirky family ritual that’s been passed down for generations.

But in business, traditions can be deadly. They’re the routines we cling to, not because they’re effective, but because “it’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Then, there are the companies who made their name by deliberately flipping traditions on their heads.

• Carvana challenged the 100-year-old tradition of buying a car at a physical dealership. They replaced the haggling and paperwork with a simple online process, breaking the unwritten rule that buying a car had to be a complex, day-long event.
  
  
• Liquid Death challenged the tradition of water being marketed as a pure, serene, and frankly, boring beverage. They broke the marketing rulebook by selling water in a beer can with a skull on it.
  
  
• Bumble looked at a social tradition that had existed for centuries: the unwritten rule that men had to make the first move. They built a multi-billion dollar brand by empowering women to change the conversation and break that rule themselves.

What’s fascinating is that each of these companies broke a totally different type of rule. Carvana went after a business process. Liquid Death went after marketing conventions. And Bumble went after a social norm.

Those rules are your biggest opportunity.

Of course, it often takes perseverance to really break a tradition. I always pitch to my wife, Tia, that we switch up Thanksgiving and ditch the turkey for, say, sushi. My ideas have not been met with enthusiasm.

But I’m not giving up yet.