True story.
Every time I start speaking with potential clients, it’s like they know it all.
They know their market, they know their customers, they know their product.
And they think they can tie it all together like their shoes.
Thing is coming up with your value proposition and positioning is not like tying your shoes.
It’s more like rummaging in a massive trash dump until you find the diamond in the rough.
A couple days ago I was watching this new cool tv series, 1883.
It’s about a former US civil war captain’s family joining a caravan of misfits and European immigrants to travel west and find a good place to live.
Suffice it to say, it’s a tough life, people dying left and right, getting bitten by snakes, getting attacked by bandits and so on.
One of the hardest thing they have to do at some point is to cross a pretty deep river.
Their caravans are heavy. Most of these families are carrying anything from furniture to musical instruments, huge containers full of clothes. It’s their lives packed up.
It’s their stories and memories.
But carrying all that extra weight won’t help them get to their destination.
If they want to cross the river the only thing they can do is leave it all behind.
There’s a great scene where one of the immigrants wants to keep his piano with him while crossing the river.
The guy translating for him (they’re German) says the guy is a musician, and that’s all he’s got to start his new life.
This is what the captain says to him:
“No, he’s not a musician. And you’re not a carpenter, and he’s not a fucking blacksmith. You are pioneers. And that’s all you are until you get there. You have no home, no job, no farm. You have the journey. That’s it.“
I thought it was pretty relevant.
Whatever you think you and your business are, if you want to be a pioneer, a one of a kind, if you want to stand out…
You only have the journey that’s in front of you.
Leave all your preconceptions, your knowledge and your ideas at the door.
Speak to your market, now and any time you need a fresh, but accurate perspective on the direction you have to take.
Don’t trust your gut, or just stop at your first guesses.
Chances are they won’t take you far, but leave you drowning in a river of false assumptions.
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