The Tribemaster's Daily Mentor | Volume 1: #36

FROM: The Desk of The Chief Tribemaster

“Testing your idea on anyone who isn’t paying you is a waste of time.” 

— CTM

Hey there!

So....

I’ve never agreed with the statement that the customer is king.

Why?

Because there can only be one king, and that means that everyone else is a servant or a subject.

I’m not a servant or a subject.

There are no monarchs in my life.

The way I think about my clients and customers is that the best of them are my creative partners.

And I’m looking to constantly increase the numbers of these types of clients and customers until the only ones I have are creative partners.

What do I mean when I say creative partners?

I'm talking about something I've noticed happens in my sessions with my best clients.

They bring their ambitions and skills into their and I bring along the structures and processes I’ve been working on for 25+ years.

And magic happens.

New concepts, strategies, and thinking tools get created by combining what I've created in my growth and what they’ve created in their growth.

Here's something else I've learned: You don’t need to introduce your ideas to clients and customers perfectly packaged.

For 4 years I ran a workshop called the brand acceleration workshop every 6 weeks that’s been at least 50 percent new material.

Where do these ideas come from?

From my sessions and meetings with best clients.

And from feed back from customers at previous Brand Acceleration Workshops

If it's life changing for them, more often than not it's life changing for everyone else.

It it doesn't click with them - it won't click with most others.

Here’s the thing: the best that I can get with an idea by myself is 50 percent. The other 50 percent has to come from the response of the clients and customers implementing these ideas.

The right clients and customers for me are those I can explore a new idea with, and they respond with the other 50 percent of it.

Here's something else:

Testing your idea on anyone who isn’t paying you is a waste of time.

Testing out an idea on your family, your social network, and anyone other than people who pay for it gives you no useful feedback.

Always and only test on your best clients and customers.

If they don’t like it, kill it. If they like it, develop it.

Hees another thing...

To an extent, the process of including them actually trains them to be even better clients and customers.

And how you engage with them will immediately influence how they go out in their worlds and engage with their own clients and customers.

The reason why some people have huge egos when they introduce new ideas is because they know they don’t have the capability to deal with the feedback of someone who sees it differently.

So they try to overpower the situation with useless research and shine shine packaging.

The more you discover that responding to the feedback from your clients and customers is the only capability you need, the more you’ll realize that you don’t need any ego.

All of their feedback can be considered facts...

Whether they tell you that you’ve made a huge, positive difference in their lives...

Or that they can’t imagine giving any money for your idea as it is.

Your clients and customers are amazing resources that you can take advantage of by testing out your ideas on them.

And people love contributing to the development of others’ ideas.

The more you include them in this process, the better it will be...

The higher the buy-in, and the more successful your ideas and products will be.

And your creativity never has to end. This is a lifelong process.

Till tomorrow..

Get out of your own way

CTM