It's a Jungle Out There
Why war is a bad metaphor for business
Business has often been described as war, but I think that's a poor metaphor. For one thing the point is not to win, as I said in a recent twitter post.
The point is first to survive; but then to thrive - to enjoy the fruits of your labor (and business is after all, labor.) Whether others are also thriving is often irrelevant. Sure there are threats to your survival; and if you want to thrive, you obviously have to overcome those threats. But overcoming the threats, while necessary, is not the definition of success. It may even be a distraction from success.
So what is a good metaphor? I think the best metaphor is the jungle. Yes, there are threats in the jungle. But the jungle is not trying to get rid of you. (Unlike in war where the focus is on eradicating an enemy whose focus is on eradicating you.) The jungle also provides a lot of resources like food and other things that you need to survive and of course to thrive. So, you can ask the question. Why does the jungle allow you to live? In business the answer to why your company is allowed to live is because it serves enough customers profitably.
Customers don't care about your survival; they care about what you can do for them. They define what matters when it comes to quality; often in ways that surprise inexperienced business owners. Customers determine how they buy; and thus, how you must sell to them. They are motivated by their own needs for gains, for pain relief, and for jobs to be done. Your offering must provide something they want more than they want their money. By serving them, you'll ensure your survival even if others are doing the same.
Why does Any of This Matter?
How we conceptualize the world affects what we pay attention to. If you think business is war, you'll pay too much attention to "the enemy" - the competitors you think you're trying to beat. If you think the world is a jungle, you'll pay attention to what allows you to thrive. Which ultimately means your customers. They are, in fact, the only ones who allow your company to survive and thrive.
Asking the question "Why does the jungle allow us to survive?" is a great start to defining your company's vision and mission in terms that lead directly to strategy and from there to plans and goals. And as I said in a previous post, a vision is useless unless it leads to strategy. A deceptively simple way to answer that question is the so-called elevator pitch. It sums up your company in a single sentence. Can you do that accurately? It looks like this.
We sell [product or service] to [customer definition] so that they [benefit].
Like most simple things there's a lot more under the surface. Let's dive into it. There are three parts.
Part 1. We sell [product or service].
Yes, you sell something. Don't shy away from that with wishy washy statements like "We strive to be the best at …." It's fine to sell something. Sometimes you don't need to actually say the word "sell". We're a construction company gets the point across. Just don't be wishy washy.
[product or service] This is your offering. What you sell. You may sell many different things. The trick is to be specific enough without falling into industry jargon. The problem with the construction company example above is that a custom home builder, a company that builds parking garages, and one that refurbishes interiors of offices are all construction companies. Try to narrow it down so no one has to ask, "what kind of construction (or law) (or consulting) do you do?"
Part 2. to [customer definition]
Do you have a written definition of your ideal customer? You should. It's called an ICP - Ideal Customer Profile. That's what goes in here. You probably have some other kinds of customers you sell to; those that are not ideal but you wouldn't get rid of them. So you may want a couple of different elevator pitches; one for each audience depending on who you’re speaking to. That's preferable to listing 2 or 3 or 4 different kinds of customers here in the same pitch.
Part 3. so that they [benefit]
This is how your customers describe the benefit of buying from you. Not how you describe it. What's the gain they get, the pain they avoid, or the job they "hire" your product to do? This is where the real research pays off. Figuring out what difference your offering makes to them. How it changes their life. It’s hard to learn this, but when you do the research and craft the language that they use it's powerful.
If you have multiple elevator pitches with different kinds of customers, they likely have different benefits described in different ways. So this part of the pitch should be different as well.
So you see, there's a bit of research that goes into making what looks like a simple elevator pitch.
And that is how you can survive in the jungle.
If you found this useful, here's where you can find more like this.
1-1 Coaching - I only work with a few clients at a time but anyone can sign up for a free session to review your transaction types.
My book Output Thinking
