If you are a business owner, or work in Marketing for your organization, one of the things you must understand is the mind of your customer.  Why?  Because if you understand what your customers are looking for, you can give them what they want.  And when a customer is looking for a solution to a problem, what they are concerned about is the benefits and how the solution you provide can help them solve their problem.

Just think about it.  If you need to hire a web designer, which of the following will you seek?

A web designer that knows HTML, Javascript, PHP, Wordpress, and understands Jquery and Mootools

OR

A web designer that can will build a site that gets your more customers, inform your target market, help you share your company story, make your stand out against your competition?

Get out of your own way

The choice should be obvious.  Obviously it’s benefits that you care about when you seek the help from someone else.  The challenge for you, however, is getting out of your own way when you market your OWN company.  What I mean is that as a business owner, often, what you care most about, and inevitably spend most of your time in your business doing is “feature building”. 

• If you are a web designer, you spend lots of time improving your skills and abilities, learning new technologies, and continuing to improve your skills. 
• If you are a printer, you spend most of your time working on new printing technologies, improving turnaround time, and errors, and making your print company more competitive. 
• If you are a software developer, you spend your time on improving your software, reducing bugs, and building capabilities.

Fortunately, that’s great for your customers.  Unfortunately, that’s really bad for your customers.

A common mistake as a business owner, is marketing features and abilities and that’s because you become myopic about what you do.  You forget about benefits because it’s not as interesting to you as “feature building” which is where your passion in business building really lies.  You spend all your time delivering your product or service better, and forget that benefits is why people buy from you.  People want their problems solved and you need to know how to give them that.

Self-Employed Professionals love to Master their Work

The problem I mention about about becoming myopic is a common mistake a lot of self-employed professionals make. I have made the same mistake myself. So how do you get of your own way?  Do a few exercises on discovering your benefits using the system I have written up for you below:

An Easy Tool for Benefit Discovery

Take the time go through the questions below.  Think about the answers and what they mean to your business and your customers

1. With your last customer, think about a story of how you helped them solve a problem. Write that story from your customers perspective.  If necessary, interview your customer and ask them what benefits they received.
2. List all your product or service “features” and next to each one, list at least one benefit of how each feature helps your customer
3. Do you have great stories of triumph, happiness or improved efficiency that you were able to give your customer? 
4. Without you, what problem would your customer have been unable to solve.  What benefit would your customer have been unable to satisfy?
5. In your industry, what are the common features all of your competitors provide?  What one feature do you have that your competition hasn’t discovered?  And if you have such a feature, what is the benefit to your customer of that feature?
6. List all the features in order from most commonly asked for, to least commonly asked for. 
7. Did you build a new business feature or capability because customers asked for it?  If so, what new benefit did your customers enjoy of that feature?
8. Think about a business you recently worked with.  Think about how the product/service made you feel both before and after the sale.  List the primary “feelings” that you expected to feel before purchasing and then compare that list to how you actually felt after the sale.  Are the lists similar or different and why?  Shouldn’t your customer feel good both before and after the sale?

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I know lots of stuff.  I’m not bragging, I just really do know a lot about a lot of different subjects.  I’m an expert at a few of them, but the ones I have a passion for I continually pursue perfection and try to achieve “greatness”. I’m not sure why that is.  Perhaps it’s my passion for excellence and the reward of becoming really great at something.  Or perhaps it’s my never ending curiosity about how the world works.  All I know is, I’m a Jack of all Trades and I’m celebrating it right here, right now. 

Did curiosity really kill an actual cat?

I have always been curious. I have this insatiable thirst for knowledge that never seems to go away.  In fact, I often feel like there just isn’t enough time to soak up all that life has to offer and that can freeze me in place with indecisiveness.

When I was young, I would take apart electronics and try to figure out how they work. My mom, in fact, used to call me “destroyer”. Yes, most kids go through this phase, but I still have that curiosity today in abundance.  The earliest I can remember, my dad said “just try”, “explore” and don’t be afraid.  People that know me well will say that:

• I’m stubborn.  No apologies, no regrets. Period.  Don’t like that?  Too bad for you.
• I figure out a way to succeed in anything I do.  For a while I thought that if I couldn’t succeed, it was someone else’s fault.  Over the last few years, I realize I’m in total control and I know it’s just a matter of putting the puzzle pieces together.
• I’m curious to a fault.  I always question how and why.  I like to know.  People think I’m intruding or stealing something but honestly I’m just curious. Perhaps it’s the control freak in me coming out and it probably comes across that way, but truthfully I’m just darned curious.  I like to know how something works when I use it.
• I often always question the status quo.  No. Actually, I despise the status quo. That’s the truth. To me status quo is an opportunity to do it differently.  I have a knack for recognizing imperfection, and I feel strongly compelled to fix it.  I’m also an INTJ so seeking optimization is something that’s in my DNA.
• I like details and I don’t mind working on them.  Being a web designer, the beauty is all in the details.  It’s the little things that matter and make a site go from good to great.  Often, I will work on pixel perfect positioning on the tiniest of details that virtually nobody will ever see. I just enjoy the process and I feel good when I succeed.
• I love best practices.  In life, some things just work and it’s no point questioning them or trying to re-invent the way it’s done.  Wanna lose weight? Eat right and Exercise.  Wanna be rich?  Hang around rich people.  Wanna get better at something?  Practice.  Duh.

That’s Jack with a CAPITAL J please

Well, 36 years into my life, and I can honestly say that sometimes, my curious nature gets me into trouble.  If you look at my career history over the last 10 years or so, it’s clear that I have held a lot of different jobs, and nearly every time it’s in a different industry and in a completely different position.  I’m not corporate ladder climbing material, that’s absolutely sure.  I probably can’t hold a position for more than a few years, and then my curiosity get’s to me and I need to try something totally new.  My last manager called me “ambitious” because he could see that sitting still wasn’t in my future.

From a “corporate career” point of view, being a Jack of All trades certainly isn’t in your benefit.  You see the corporate culture you know today is really something that existed from the days of war when people needed to repeat a task over and over. Innovation and Mastery were left to heads of state and designers of war, not to the lowly “man on the line”.

Single Tasking Humans are from the Days of War

It’s a theory (isn’t everything we state just a theory anyways?), but I do believe the corporate conditioning and social systems we are all are a part of tell us that we should become a master of just one thing and that diversifying yourself is bad for you.  Diversify a stock portfolio, not a career path.  My parents often say, “Why don’t you keep one job and stick with it?”.  Now be patient with me. I’m not against staying at one job and being content with it, but I truly believe it’s something that existed from the days of war, and a time when The Great Depression forced everyone into silos. 

Being a single tasking person is great when

• There are lots of jobs and the future is stable
• Your skill is needed inside a mass production system
• Your skill or task can’t be replaced by machinery or computers

Look at the above list.  Name one of those items that is true today.  Well, there are lots of jobs but nothing is stable in the economy.  I don’t personally know anyone that works in factories anymore.  I think it’s all offshore now, and there isn’t a single mass production system, job, skill, or piece of knowledge that can’t be replaced by machinery, automation, and computer AI systems. 

I think as well, that over the last 100 years there has also been a major shift in the human mind and it’s ability to do amazing things.  Access to the web has allowed for a tremendous amount of knowledge and information to be shared.   Global travel and commerce has allowed for products and services of all kinds to be bought and sold by all the nations of the world.

The Star Trek world is coming

It might be premature to say, but I think Globalization as well as a naturally occurring move towards a perfect “Star Trek” world is inevitable.  People want to be a part of great ideas and to do something worthwhile.  Just look at Google.  Their motto is to “organize the worlds information”.  Those early programmers worked night and day to make that dream a remote possibility (which it might be if Google sticks around for a few more years).  Look at Bill and Melinda Gates.  The took all their wealth and decided that living up to their foundations motto, “all lives have equal value”, was something worth pursuing.

Everyone is sharing more and more.  Name one thing you can’t learn online (well except maybe your grandma’s apple pie recipe)?   Cost of information is near zero. Products are universally available without discrimination to your color, gender, or ethnicity.  It’s now possible to get Bananas from Jamaica, TVs from Japan, Silk from China, and Curry from India all without leaving your front door. Fedex, a company with the large private fleet of airplanes in the world, will deliver it all to you fresh from the producer before the week is over.

Adapt and Conquer, just like The Romans

Technology, Computers, the Internet, Travel, and Communication have all had remarkable affects on the human consciousness.  So what’s next?  Well, as my friend Eddie says “adapt and conquer” is the name of the game.  Learn to act quickly.  Be an “Agile” person, don’t just write Agile software.  Go where the opportunities are and learn quickly.  Be ready to drop everything you believe in and change quickly. There are a tonne of opportunities around you at the bleeding edge of innovation, entrepreneurship and philanthropy.  All of them are ways to contribute to the global shift already occurring under your feet.  Outsource like everyone else.  Be a participant in the global shift.  Don’t cry.  Instead, celebrate and enjoy the possibilities.

The spread of information and access to anything the world produces is here, right now, whether you like it or not.  Are you prepared? Are you a Jack of All Trades?  Do you already know how to learn quickly and pickup a new skill or two?  Can you learn anything?  Are you curious?  Do you love to acquire knowledge and skill?  Does certainty bore you?  If so, congratulations!  You are ready to rule the new world!

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