DON’T BE AFRAID OF CLARITY!
Coach Dan highlights the importance of clarity and focus in your business life. Why is this important to you? Why does it matter?
When you walk into my office you will find that the top third of all my whiteboards have one word highlighted: Clarity. One of the consistent reasons why a business or person succeeds or fails is that they have either an abundance of or a lack of foundational clarity. The great thing is that it’s really totally up to each individual and business which situation we choose to live in.
Back in the day, we could get away with lack of clarity. But in today’s business world, clarity will help you get the specific customers you want, define your purpose and help you get rich dividends. For instance, if you want to sell red wagons, who is going to be your target audience? You need clarity to figure that out so that you can zoom into the exact customer profile. Will young parents with little kids like Red Wagons or will people over 75 like Red Wagons?
Clarity makes you understand the customers’ needs based on the customers’ point of view. This changes everything. When we learn to understand needs from another person’s point of view this means we’re solving needs and issues by what the customer or prospect believes them to be not what we believe them to be. This one simple mindset forces us to be better listeners. If we just shut the heck up and listen, our prospects and client WILL tell us how to help/sell them.
Here is an example of something that happened recently in my area. There was (and I emphasize the word, was!) a hardware store whose owners decided that they would dedicate a large portion of their store to flooring, carpeting, tile and home accessories. Their vision for what the neighborhood wanted. Not long ago, this store closed. You have to wonder if anyone in an upper income neighborhood would ever want to tell their friends that they remodeled their home through a neighborhood hardware store. Most people go to the neighborhood hardware store to buy items for immediate needs. We’re they trying to be something that they wanted or was sufficient research done to justify that this is what the neighborhood wanted? We’ll never know for sure but I would bet that more CLARITY would have helped.
In scenarios like these, clarity matters. Clarity of purpose will help us create a product or service based on our customers’ point of view and not our point of view. There are numerous examples of businesses that have failed because of a lack of clarity. Just take the case of the healthcare Website controversy we’ve had recently. Why did it initially fail? The reason is simple- people who designed the healthcare.gov site failed to ask clear questions. What does the user need? How can we make it easier and clearer for the user? Why do we need so much forms and so many choices? Can we simplify those so that any user, even those with less education could easily navigate the site?
The first step to understanding clarity regarding your business is to ask questions. The more we ask, we will find answers and this can help us focus on where we want to go.
Clarity also leads us to accountability and helps us keep a tab on our progress. I have in my office business plans of enterprises I started several decades ago. Whether anyone sees it or not a well done business plan forces you to ask yourself questions that will clarify your vision, sometimes allowing yourself to see new opportunities and in turn pitfalls. When I went through unchartered waters, my business plan was a fabulous tool as reference.
Do not be afraid of CLARITY! Yes if you’ve allowed yourself to answer the tough questions with easy answers, you should be afraid of clarity. But if you have the guts to ask, research, listen and follow the clarity that you can achieve, you life and your business will most assuredly change. Let’s not be websites pointing in multiple directions, let’s pursue our tasks with perseverance and crystal clear clarity. Make sure that you have your goals clearly in front of you at all times.
If you’re having difficulty finding clarity in your business, write or give me a call? This is what I do and I’m open for business.
Be Great!
Coach Dan.