Nicholas Nassim Taleb is the author of Black Swan, named by The Sunday Times (UK) as one of the twelve most influential books since WW2.
I’ve read it cover to cover myself, and while disagreeing with what Taleb philosophizes about when it comes to evolutionary psychology and all that kind of stuff, I must say that his work otherwise sparkles with actionable truisms galore.
He’s a specialist in identifying and evaluating the impact of highly improbable events. He also explains how you can position yourself to take advantage of asymmetrical outcomes.
(Caveat: The Black Swan is pretty deep reading, and I’m not going to pretend that I could follow all of Taleb’s arguments and reasoning. This guy dives deep and fast in his analysis.)
But amidst the musings he offers a great insight into how his own business meetings begin.
Taleb starts “every meeting convincing everyone that we are a big bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.”
Brilliant. Now that’s something you can use.
What do you think you know that you really are clueless about?
Here’s a more specific one for you:
Why do your customers love you, and continue to give you their hard-earned money?
Because of your awesome workmanship?
Attention to detail?
Great prices?
Friendly demeanor?
“Professional” conduct?
Impeccable comportment?
Prompt response to inquiries?
Unique guarantee?
Good-looking workers?
Punctuality?
Why not try this: Assume you’re clueless.
Learn from Taleb. Assume that you know nothing. Assume you’re a big bunch of idiots.
Ask the people that give you their money (your clients) instead.
Ask your 25 favorite customers these two questions:
1. Why did you choose our company in the first place?
2. Why do you continue to do business with us?
You’ll be amazed at what you learn.
Case in point: Several months ago, I had a client ask me for some help with rebranding their window cleaning company. They’ve been in business for around 8 years, and have done well. They have lots of clients, make good money, and appear to be in demand and healthy. I asked the owner – who we’ll call “Mark” – why he thought his business was successful to date.
He replied right away, without hesitation: “Attention to detail.”
Incidentally, this is the default reply for any business owner when they are asked why they have been successful. Ask around and you’ll see for yourself. We all tend to believe that offering the highest quality ________ is the linchpin to our business success. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I suggested to Mark that instead of assuming that his company’s secret weapon was “attention to detail”, maybe we should poke around a little bit and ask some of his clients about why they had given Mark their business to date.
So we did.
We asked his 10 best clients (best in terms of likability, ease of doing business, high profit, you know, the kind of client that you wish you had 100 more of) the two questions I shared with you above:
1. Why did you choose our company in the first place?
2. Why do you continue to use us for this kind of stuff?
Of Mark’s 10 best clients that we polled, how many do you think commented on “attention to detail”, or “quality of workmanship” in either of their answers?
Two. A measly 2 out of 10.
And 1 of those 2 said that Mark did just an “okay job”, when it came to workmanship.
Mark’s heart sank.
Imagine busting your butt to obsess over workmanship only to find out that none of your best customers could care less. In fact, to 90% of them, your “attention to detail” in downright invisible.
Quality is boring because quality is ubiquitous.
Most of your competition is good enough that they could go toe-to-toe with you and your crew on quality, and to the untrained eye, there simply won’t be much of a difference.
(Have you ever had a client tell you their “windows look great!” even before you had cleaned those particular ones yet?” Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about when it comes to the untrained eyes of your clients.)
I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. So stop obsessing over quality.
There was a bright spot in all this, however: Mark discovered that 7 of his 10 best clients did care very much about something else that he never even considered as being equally important to workmanship: reliability.
7 of the 10 commented that it was his company’s reliability that keeps them coming back to his company.
That’s gold.
I’m working with Mark on helping him to use this precious information in his current re-branding efforts.
What about you?
When’s the last time you asked your customers why they love your company?
Is it time to “assume you’re a big bunch of idiots who know nothing”?
You’ll be happy you did.
If you liked this post, you’ll probably like these, too:
Do you believe you’re a “a big bunch of idiots”?
Posted by Kevin Dubrosky
I’ve read it cover to cover myself, and while disagreeing with what Taleb philosophizes about when it comes to evolutionary psychology and all that kind of stuff, I must say that his work otherwise sparkles with actionable truisms galore.
He’s a specialist in identifying and evaluating the impact of highly improbable events. He also explains how you can position yourself to take advantage of asymmetrical outcomes.
(Caveat: The Black Swan is pretty deep reading, and I’m not going to pretend that I could follow all of Taleb’s arguments and reasoning. This guy dives deep and fast in his analysis.)
But amidst the musings he offers a great insight into how his own business meetings begin.
Taleb starts “every meeting convincing everyone that we are a big bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.”
Brilliant. Now that’s something you can use.
What do you think you know that you really are clueless about?
Here’s a more specific one for you:
Why do your customers love you, and continue to give you their hard-earned money?
Because of your awesome workmanship?
Attention to detail?
Great prices?
Friendly demeanor?
“Professional” conduct?
Impeccable comportment?
Prompt response to inquiries?
Unique guarantee?
Good-looking workers?
Punctuality?
Why not try this: Assume you’re clueless.
Learn from Taleb. Assume that you know nothing. Assume you’re a big bunch of idiots.
Ask the people that give you their money (your clients) instead.
Ask your 25 favorite customers these two questions:
1. Why did you choose our company in the first place?
2. Why do you continue to do business with us?
You’ll be amazed at what you learn.
Case in point: Several months ago, I had a client ask me for some help with rebranding their window cleaning company. They’ve been in business for around 8 years, and have done well. They have lots of clients, make good money, and appear to be in demand and healthy. I asked the owner – who we’ll call “Mark” – why he thought his business was successful to date.
He replied right away, without hesitation: “Attention to detail.”
Incidentally, this is the default reply for any business owner when they are asked why they have been successful. Ask around and you’ll see for yourself. We all tend to believe that offering the highest quality ________ is the linchpin to our business success. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I suggested to Mark that instead of assuming that his company’s secret weapon was “attention to detail”, maybe we should poke around a little bit and ask some of his clients about why they had given Mark their business to date.
So we did.
We asked his 10 best clients (best in terms of likability, ease of doing business, high profit, you know, the kind of client that you wish you had 100 more of) the two questions I shared with you above:
1. Why did you choose our company in the first place?
2. Why do you continue to use us for this kind of stuff?
Of Mark’s 10 best clients that we polled, how many do you think commented on “attention to detail”, or “quality of workmanship” in either of their answers?
Two. A measly 2 out of 10.
And 1 of those 2 said that Mark did just an “okay job”, when it came to workmanship.
Mark’s heart sank.
Imagine busting your butt to obsess over workmanship only to find out that none of your best customers could care less. In fact, to 90% of them, your “attention to detail” in downright invisible.
Quality is boring because quality is ubiquitous.
Most of your competition is good enough that they could go toe-to-toe with you and your crew on quality, and to the untrained eye, there simply won’t be much of a difference.
(Have you ever had a client tell you their “windows look great!” even before you had cleaned those particular ones yet?” Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about when it comes to the untrained eyes of your clients.)
I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. So stop obsessing over quality.
There was a bright spot in all this, however: Mark discovered that 7 of his 10 best clients did care very much about something else that he never even considered as being equally important to workmanship: reliability.
7 of the 10 commented that it was his company’s reliability that keeps them coming back to his company.
That’s gold.
I’m working with Mark on helping him to use this precious information in his current re-branding efforts.
What about you?
When’s the last time you asked your customers why they love your company?
Is it time to “assume you’re a big bunch of idiots who know nothing”?
You’ll be happy you did.
If you liked this post, you’ll probably like these, too: