Suppose you meet a stranger who offers to get rid of a bunch of problems that have long been complicating your life in one fell swoop. But there is a nuance - while the interlocutor sees the obvious cause of your torments, you were not aware of it, and, pouring sweat, continued to drag the heavy burden for years. The alternative - you have long ago made many attempts to get rid of the annoying symptoms on your own, but have failed and finally accepted that nothing can be done and that this is your fate. In both cases, it’s as if there is a problem, but it’s as if there isn’t.
How will you meet a stranger’s proposal? Obviously, with a mixture of bewilderment, mistrust and skepticism. It will take him a truly titanic effort to overcome this barrier by conveying ironclad logic, objective facts, the benefits of change, and the dangers of maintaining the status quo. But all this work will be in spite of, not thanks to, since you have no motivation to change anything. By definition, there is no answer without a question. This kind of over effort is energy wasted. It’s like making a fire out of wet twigs in the woods. Or, as the Buddhists would say, adding legs to the drawn snake.
Yet all too often, companies stubbornly try to push a service or product to the wrong customers and/or at the wrong time. Advertising, sales, and negotiations are like a cruel baby pulling the tail of a poor cat who resists and begs to be left alone. What's more, there is a whole industry that promises to quickly teach you how to impose your will on customers. Where does this propensity for violence and cynicism come from? I think it comes from impatience, greed, and lazy thinking. When you want it all right now, like a junkie, you’ll do anything to get your fix. So what to do?
It is necessary to interrupt the dangerous craving for pleasure. Practically, this means pushing the transaction into the future, to feel indifferent to the result in the short term. In this space, peace reigns instead of hysteria, and curiosity ensues. These are optimal conditions to explore and experiment, answering the questions: “Who are my ideal clients? How do I differentiate them from the rest? What are their true needs?” The advantage of this approach is that even a little clarification rewards the entrepreneur, as if he were the captain of a ship tweaking the spyglass to enhance the contours of the land. Soon the feedback loops will present the insight that your ideal clients are those who have recognized their problem, tried to solve it themselves, but are not resigned to failure, but instead are determined to find a solution together with you.
Yours sincerely,
-Alexander
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