The focus of transactional
It’s all about deciding —yes, making a choice where you have the power— where the focus of your business is. Short-term v long-term Serving v service What is v What could be It’s all about the potential (what your customers can realize. How they can thrive) you see. Then you’ll focus on what really matters to you.
Transactional
“We don’t do transactional, we do relationship with our clients.” Everything is transactional. They have different depths, dynamics and trade-offs. Are some business relationship something more, though? And here comes the thing: it’s not about the transaction itself, it’s about the meaning. And there are meaningful relationships. And others that are not. Which ones are the ones that will make YOU, and your customers grow? On which ones would you rather focus on?
Everything is sales.
You heard that right. Everything is sales. But doing sales is not (necessarily) selling. It’s helping to buy.
Real questions
“There are enough real questions and issues to solve – let’s not solve problems that don’t exist [like stop calling soft skills, something else].” That was a reply to Soft Skills from 2 days ago. Real questions will NEVER get all the time and dedication and focus to be solved as A real question. They’re not in siloes. Everything is connected and interdependent. Problems are not mutually exclusive: If you fix A, you can’t fix B. Because something’s been in use for a long time (hello, status…
Not being the expert
Not behaving like the expert can take many forms. One of them: trying to avoid pushback, arguments, or resistance in your relationship with clients. It can hurt you more than help. You can be in the order-taking business, if you prefer. And that’s fine. The impact that comes from it, though, will be smaller. You can be in the service business, where your impact will be higher. Or you can be in the transformation business, and help them achieve the potential your customers have. How you want…
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Sometimes you need time to regroup. Do it with intention. That beats busy-ness. Always.
Are you waiting for the big moment?
Are you saving your BIG IDEA for when you have the big audience and everyone is waiting for what you have to say? You’re not alone. This fear hits us all the time. You think that you’ll “save” your big idea for when you’re famous / recognized and don’t want to “spend” it early in your journey. But what if you’re not spending your best ideas? What if you’re refining them, live, with an audience? Think of it like a song you just wrote. It sounds good in your head, but unless someone else…
Less is less
And more is more —no shit, Sherlock. ????️♀️ You’ve been taught that “less is more”, as in the belief that simplicity and clarity will always mean more, by taking off what’s not necessary. However, what if it’s not less, but actually more? “More is more” by Monotype. To make it “less” cluttered, cleaner, clearer, complex, you need more. More thoughtful, more experienced, more nuanced, more focused on the other side: your customer. More “others-focused”. And less will be less brain work for your…
2 dangerous things in business
There are 2 dangerous things in a world of fit-ins (besides being standard/average/best-practice): → Fit in Imagine this: you’re a square and have to mold yourself to fit in a circle shape, because everyone else is a circle. In the end, you’re still a square, only now hiding your edge. → Blend in Picture yourself as a color. You’re a color (choose your fave one) and get into a blender with other colors. You get blended in dissolving and dissipating your hue and intensity. You get an average…
Fits
Fit in. Fit with. Fit. You’re supposed to find a product-market fit, a customer-product fit, a product-channel fit (omnichannel, right?), so that your business thrives. Which means you need to look like the others —or VERY similar at least. And becoming something like the others turns your offering into average. That’s why it fits. Now think of this: if you’re supposed to fit in (your market, customers’, channels), how are you supposed to stand out?
