It’s Not Me, It’s You

You have heard me say this before, it’s a bit of a business mantra with me.

Not my mantra: yours.

Your business success will be determined by the people buying your product or service (buying is more important than selling, more on this in a future post), so make your decisions all about them: the buyers. To this end, I encourage business owners and entrepreneurs to use this as the basis of their marketing and sales efforts. Tell your clients: “it’s not about me, it’s about you”.

In a recent conversation in which I mentioned this I was reminded of Henry Ford anecdote which has him state “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.*” This was declared with the goal of proving that people do not, in fact, know what they want. I tend to disagree: for the most part people do know what they want.

It is a logical step from “faster horse” to “moving carriage”, and it is the work of the visionary or product expert to deliver that product. It takes the creativity of a visionary or product expert to take that step, but it is in fact based on what your prospective clients are willing to buy. The product itself is responding directly to a customer want.

There is a step by step process I apply to delve into what those customers want, and over time I will relay it here in this blog. It is a process that is then worked in to my clients’ strategy, so they continuously are listening to those clients. Those wants are what drives product development and revenue generation in those businesses.

*The quote is debated – whether Ford said this or not is not relevant to this story. It is the way this quote is applied which matters here.