The Disappearing Boss – Page 46 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

December 17, 2019

Community

I spent Sunday with some of my family. My sister and I both read Seth Godin’s daily blog and were trying to explain why to her daughter.

At one point we both said, almost in unison “Some days its just like he’s got inside your head.”

I’m sure many of Seth’s readers say this every single day.

You can only do this if you know a) who it is you are trying to talk to; b) what’s likely to be going in inside their heads and c) where they are likely to go for inspiration, and the simple pleasure of being with ‘people like us’.

And the best way to know where the people you want to serve are at any one time, is to create a space and a community that does all these things just for them.

December 16, 2019

Not necessarily in that order

Where choosing from many options is unavoidable, you can help people choose (and keep them engaged in the process of choosing) with hierarchy.

Start with a few big options to select from, then gradually increase the granularity of choice until your client is happy to deal with 57 varieties.

That way you’ve educated them in how selection works, and you’ve made them interested in what comes next.

That makes them much more likely to stick with it to the end.

December 12, 2019

Make it vivid

Another way to help the people you serve choose what they need from you, is to make the options concrete.

Instead of simply listing options, show your potential client what a particular combination actually looks like as a ‘finished dish’.

Then go further and put together combinations around what your target client needs, not just what you have to sell.

December 11, 2019

Narrow down

One way to help the people you serve to choose what they need from you is to categorise your offerings.

We’re used to this of course, in libraries, on menus, on well-organised magazine counters, on campuses.

The category gives us a very quick way in, a guide to where to start our more detailed search.

A caveat though, to be truly helpful, the categories need to be meaningful to your client.

December 9, 2019

Choices, choices

We business owners love to over-complicate things.

We think that more is always better. We love to give people options, second-guess people’s likely choices.

That’s a mistake.

People who are looking for help like to be guided, they like to be helped to decide with the right information and an optimal number of choices that isn’t overwhelming. This is especially true when they are buying expertise that they don’t have.

Your expertise is why they are considering you. Use it to honestly guide the people you serve to the right solution for them.

December 4, 2019

Dissecting the Promise, Part 2: in a way that is completely congruent with your values, beliefs and style,

Clients and customers don’t just buy the product or service we sell, nor even the promise of moving one step nearer to being the person they want to be.

They also buy the experience of buying and the experience of that becoming.

Which means that the experience of buying and becoming has to be consistent with their values, beliefs and style – with both who they are and who they want to be.

Imagine trying to deliver that experience to someone with whom you share not a single value, belief or style. You would feel like a fraud. they would feel it too.

It’s much easier (and more satisfying) to start by clarifying our own values, beliefs and style, so we can intentionally attract like-minded clients and customers, and deliver an experience that’s authentic for both of us.

To be truly fulfilling for both parties, customer experience has to be built-in, not bolted on.

December 3, 2019

Dissecting the Promise, Part 1: become the person you want to be

We all want to be someone else. Someone better. Stronger, fairer, kinder, cleverer, more authoritative, more creative, more exotic – the list goes on.

If you happen to be a cosplay or fancy dress business able to literally do that – lucky you!

The rest of us have to spend some time working out a) who the people we serve are and b) who they want to be. And of course there can be several of either.

Whether you sell a product or service, the challenge is the same. Take electric drills, for example. As someone famously said, when his marketing department insisted on going through features “people don’t buy drills, they buy holes in the wall!”.

They don’t of course. They don’t even buy a bookshelf on the wall, or a picture hung, or a wooden toy mended. What they buy is the ability to become a closer version of the person they want to be.

Putting up a shelf, or hanging a picture or mending the wooden toy might make a father feel he is taking care of his family, as his father did before him. He’s out at work all day, so he misses out on mealtimes and bedtimes, but he can do his bit for the nest they’re all in.

The same thing might make a woman feel like she is independent, capable, self-sufficient, so that when she chooses to settle down its because she wants to, not because she has to.

That’s a lot to pack in to a product or service. As responsible businesses we have a duty to understand who we serve and who they want to be, as fully as we can, and then find the best, most effective way to help them get there, without harming them, other people or the planet in the process.

We never buy just ‘stuff’. Which means we can’t sell just ‘stuff’.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: The Disappearing Boss