Overcome the blind spot to unleash growth (2 of 2).
In our last post, we covered Ted’s story, the Founder of a tech services company who believed deeply in his brand.
We learned that while it is healthy for Ted to hold deeply rooted beliefs about his brand, it also creates a blind spot in our thinking, and ultimately in our language.
This blind spot is an assumption where we believe our audience views the brand in the same way we do.
That blind spot was making everything Ted and his team did to market, sell, and service harder than it needed to be…as if it isn’t hard enough already.
Ted’s story had a happy ending (here, in case you missed it). He and his team started achieving the results they really wanted.
So what had to happen for Ted to overcome this blind spot and achieve the results he wanted…the results we all want?
He had to see the brand through the lens of the audience.
Ok. What does that actually mean? How does that work?
Well it may seem fairly simple to say that Ted changed his mind.
Simple? Yes.
Easy? Not so much.
Our brand messaging is an output of our language. Our language comes from our thinking.
The critical shift in Ted’s story occurred when he decided (an activity in the mind) it was necessary to challenge his own THINKING…not just how he acted on his deeply rooted beliefs, but challenging the beliefs themselves.
Why was it necessary?
Because he wanted better results more than anything else…even more than he wanted to hold on to his deeply rooted beliefs.
The fact was, his beliefs did not prioritize how customers prioritized their problems and how they want to solve them within the context of a life lived in their world.
A deeply rooted belief may be true, but that doesn’t make it a top priority of our audience.
Peel that back another layer and the issue was really fear.
And while fear of change could be part of it, there’s something deeper.
People fear what precedes change, more than change.
People fear loss.
In this case, giving up a deeply rooted belief would represent tremendous personal loss.
Why?
Because most people think going a different direction is an admission of error about the current/past direction…that somehow everything from the past is invalidated.
Maybe it was an error, maybe it wasn’t. In the case of Ted, he was still able to start up a business and get to a certain point.
But the greater error would be to not test something that showed signs of being problematic. At worst, there is validation. At best, the “something” is retired for a better answer…that leads to better results.
So what else do we need to understand about loss?
Losses leave holes that need to be filled.
That requires work we didn’t expect, often work we don’t always know exactly how to do.
And then there’s the threat of more loss if that work doesn’t go well.
But Ted realized that not getting the desired results was a way worse a kind of loss…
…losing out on more loyal customers, more profitable revenue, making everything the company did as a brand clearer, easier, simpler, better.
When we want better results, consider the perspective of the people with all the power. Employees. Customers. Prospective customers.
While they may not know how to bring oodles of moving parts together to run the business, they know what they care about and in what order.
Focus the thinking on that.
The right language will develop.
The right messaging will follow.
Quality engagement will follow.
Then, better results will follow.
Here’s to better thinking, as better thinking comes before better doing.
Best,
Peter
Peter A Snell
Founder and CEO