by 
It’s May 17th, 1966…
A slim, wiry figure approaches the front of the stage in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall.
The man has just played an hour-long solo set in front of an adoring audience who clapped and cheered each of his songs with an almost-religious fervour.
Now, things are about to get very different…
For his second set of the night, he’s joined onstage by his backing band, currently called The Hawks.
The singer looks at them, glances at the audience, plugs in his electric guitar and begins playing.
Boos ring out almost immediately.
Angry cries of “Traitor!” and “Go home!” can be heard…
Some people simply stand up and walk out.
The booing comes from a large number of the people who had just applauded with such passion for the past hour…
And it doesn’t let up, as the man and his band rip through eight tracks: each one amplified, and loud as hell.
The mutiny in the audience grows with each new song, as the fans – mortally offended by their supposed folk idol’s decision to play with electric instruments deemed impure and suitable only for that surely soon-to-pass fad called ‘rock & roll’ – whistle and slow-clap in an attempt to drown out the racket from the stage.
Then, just when things seemingly couldn’t get more hostile, as the singer signals his band to begin their final number, a lone voice in the crowd yells out the final insult…
“Judas!”
A stunned hush settles on the hall…
The man turns to his compadres, tells them to “play it fuckin’ loud”, and launches into a raw, angry and definitive ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
The singer is of course Bob Dylan – up until around a year before this concert, the critical darling of the folk music movement.
Yet ever since he first ‘plugged in’ at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, wherever he’s played there have been similar scenes…
His adoring audiences from Melbourne to Manchester have turned on him, voicing their betrayal throughout the second halves of each concert…
They’re as loud in their condemnation as they had been in their praise during the acoustic sets that open each night.
50 years on, Dylan’s change of direction has long since been justified…
Legions of loyal fans, consistent album and ticket sales, hard-won respect from his peers…
…and last month, even a Nobel Prize he doesn’t seem to want.
But where would Dylan be now if he’d remained simply an acoustic-only folkie?
What would the world look like?
The thing is, many of the people who attended that ’65-’66 world tour LOVED the new electric material…
They cried out for “Tombstone Blues, Bob!” even as the catcalling of the unhappy folkies drowned them out.
Amidst the ‘betrayal’, imaginations were fired, lives were changed, and careers began.
Dylan’s act of defiance (at just 24!) and the path he forged since made him one of our most successfully unconventional entrepreneurs.
There’s a lesson here for all us biz-owners…
Dylan weathered the storm of betrayal because he knew he HAD to do what he was doing.
He wasn’t following fashion – rock & roll at that point was as unhip as it would ever be, and all the ‘cool kids’ were folk fans…
But he knew that if he pursued his goal, SOME people would understand, and come with him on the journey.
He knew his audience would be split, but not obliterated.
While he may not have anticipated being called the ‘Judas’ of a movement he’d helped create, he certainly knew his actions would alienate a large section of paying punters…
But that was how it had to be.
He knew his audience’s expectations – the ones he’d built himself – couldn’t hold back his work’s progress.
Here’s a couple of important questions you should ask yourself:
Does your audience – your customers, readers, user base – have expectations you can’t continue to fulfil?
Are these expectations holding you, your brand or your products back from progressing in the direction you need to go?
While it’s certainly possible for a business to paint itself into a corner if it tries to ‘screw with the formula’…
(Crystal Pepsi or Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water, anyone?)
…proving that sometimes, if people really want you to remain a ‘folkie’, you’re stuck with the Aran sweaters and chinstrap beards for good.
But what about the companies that pivoted successfully and followed their instincts, Dylan-like, and hit it big?
What about Nintendo, who took 67 years of dealing in playing cards, vacuum cleaners and instant rice before joining the video game market in ’66 (the same year Bob and The Band brought the house down in Manchester)?
How about Twitter, which began life as Odeo, designed only to help people subscribe to podcasts, before clocking up over a billion registered users as something completely different?
Or ‘The Point’, a social fundraising site that included a feature offering discounts when enough users agreed to fund something, and who eventually decided to run with just the discount-focused side project…
They named it Groupon, and the ‘side project’ racked up 200million subscribers worldwide.
Now imagine:
What would be the one thing about your product or service that, if you changed it, your customers would call you “Traitor!” or accuse you of betrayal?
What is the one core value your audience associates with you – and do you know why it’s so important to them?
Who amongst your following would come with you if you were to replace that idea with something else in the pursuit of growth or a new direction?
Do you know how many of your users, customers or clients stay with you because of that one thing?
On the flipside…
What about the people who would come with you if you decided to pivot and launch a new product that did something your current product or brand can’t…
…do you know who they are, or how many they are?
What if there are more of them than you think?
What if..?
What if you were to ‘plug in’ and ‘go electric’… what would that look like to your biz?
Is it ever ok to ‘betray your customers’?
Sometimes the best way to figure out what your customers would miss most about you, or what they wish you would change (“play that new one, Tombstone Blues, Bob!”) is to ask them.
If you’re interested in finding out the most effective way to do this…
…in order to generate new revenue streams…
…or test new products…
…or just make sure you’re never faced with thousands of angry customers yelling “Judas!” at you…
I’ve developed a service that can help you uncover your audience’s most passionate responses to your products.
Head here to find out more about it.
