Nobody Cares What YOU Want!

Sounds a bit harsh doesn't it?

Stick with me for a minute or two and let me explain what I mean.

Regardless of the business or the industry you are in or your position whether you are a receptionist or the chairman of the board - your business is in the business of selling something.

If not and If you aren't - then what you are doing is some other activity other than business. Maybe a hobby, maybe something else - but if it makes money as an enterprise it is a business and that means it is selling something.

That may include products, services or both.

Regardless of what you do - you will be dealing with other people in multiple ways - and never forget - they all care most about what they want and not much at all about what you want.

The Most Common Mistake

Too many people approach their work, business and life from the wrong angle - and that is just looking for ways to get what they want.

Yet in reality the only sustainable and realistic way to build a business that will last over the long haul is to do the exact opposite of that. Instead of just going after what you want - take the time and make the effort to find out what THEY want.

Figure out what their pain is, what questions they are searching for answers to and then find possible solutions for them. As you find ways to make those solutions available - and there are many ways to do so, including affiliate marketing and many more - the better you get at creating or finding and matching solutions to problems and challenges the better you will do over time in any kind of business.

Lessons from the Trucking Industry

Years ago I worked for a trucking company that I helped build from 50 to 60 or so drivers up to a fleet of more than 125 drivers. Most of them I personally recruited and trained, coached and mentored. Some I even personally taught how to drive a tractor trailer myself - others were trained by instructors I had selected and trained.

A very few actually were administered their CDL (Commercial Drivers License) skill's test by me when I was a 3rd party skill's examiner for the state.

Long story shorter - I cared a tremendous amount for all of these people and I invested an enormous amount of my time, energy and life into trying to help them as best as I could figure out how to do so.

I had already learned that the only way I could be successful and reach my own goals was through helping other people reach theirs.

Every month we had a safety meeting. Part of the meeting was conducted by me and was training on trucking related topics, safety, risk management and other things. The rest of the meeting was supposed to be a business meeting.

Often the owner would start out OK talking about the company, customers, loads and related things - then he would almost always digress into "All the things I do for you..." and complain to the attending drivers about things that had nothing to do with most of them at all and was not in their control.

He would actually complain to the drivers about mistakes that operations or the shop made as though somehow the drivers were the problem!

You could feel the tension increase and the entire mood change instantly. You could see their eyes glaze over and see they were no longer interested in what he was saying at all. If anything they resented it.

What They Want...

What he never fully understood was that they were not there to serve him or his company - they were there to earn a living and trying to build a better life for themselves and their own families. So long as they had an acceptable opportunity to do that, and so long as the companys opportunities supported that, there would be a mutually beneficial relationship that could continue for years.

The better a trucking company (or any other company) understands and does this the better job they do at attracting and retaining highly motivated and productive people. The inverse is also true - the worse a company does at these things the fewer drivers it will have and the worse they will be (bad driving records, accidents, incidents, liability).

That increases the chances of the company struggling and ultimately failing too.

In trucking you are constantly selling driving opportunities. The ability to attract, recruit and retain top producing, safe and efficient truck drivers is critical in a very competetive industry, and you simply will not be very successful - and may not even survive - if you don't come to understand and deal with this effectively.

Fast forward a few years. I left the company to pursue other opportunities, and sadly within a few years that company lost more than half its drivers and went from growing, to declining and in crisis to barely surviving.

Why?

Because the drivers to this day do not care what IT wants - they care about what THEY want...

The Concept is Universal

I won't bore you with another long winded story (not yet anyway!) but I also have years of experience in real estate and have seen the exact same concept applied and its results in real life over and over again in both sales and rentals of residential properties of all types and even within the ability of a firm to attract and retain agents.

I have witnessed the same exact thing happen again and again in all kinds of businesses and in everyday life in general over many years. This story is always the same - it's just the charaters and the settings that change.

If you want to learn from it lest you repeat the pattern yourself, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself and then seek answers to;

Who are you dealing with?

Who are your customers and clients and what is their pain?

What do THEY want?

How can you find and deliver solutions they want?

Whether it is customers, clients, readers, students, viewers, listeners, employees, members, associates or anyone else - you must look at it all through their eyes and from their perspective - not just your own.

What are they looking for and how can you give it to them?

Some of the answers you will be seeking have already been answered again and again and are available through research. Online searches, videos, blog posts, books, and online courses can all provide you with years worth of knowledge in a few minutes, hours or a few days at the most in many cases.

There are ways to ask the people you help directly what they want too.

Ask the questions - find the answers - provide the solutions.

As the old saying goes, help enough other people get what they want and you can have anything you want.

In other words again - focus on providing value and on providing solutions that other people want and get better at doing that.

The better your solutions are the more you will benefit too, all in good time.

Now I want to know your thoughts!

Do you agree?

Disagree?

What are your own experiences telling you so far?