I seek customer, prospect and partner feedback before I ever begin to brainstorm a strategy.  Clients often ask me why I don’t take their word for where they are and what they do.  It’s not that I don’t believe them. I do. 

It’s that I don’t believe any of us can clearly see today’s reality through the eyes of our buyers.  We’re too busy managing the day-to-day in our overloaded lives. We need clear perspective - and that comes from the keepers of the truth – our audiences.

We all think we know our markets, know that we can promote what we believe to be best for our buyers - which happens to be our products. Unfortunately - that's just not the case anymore. There was a day when advertising and marketing could sway a market - but no more.  The internet and social media changed that forever.

Today's buyers control their own destinies through information.

Everything we need to know about our present and future is in the eyes and hearts of our customers. They know their present needs and can offer advice to improve and enhance our value.  They  also know  the progress they want to make, the challenges they expect to face.

Our audiences put their money where their beliefs are.

Since those dollars represent the holy grail we seek – I follow them, not internal opinions. I care what internal players believe - but I also know that the customer is my Keeper of the Truth. Customer opinions are the only ones that matter. Creating strategies in the vacuum of our own corporate legends is how we fail. 

Ask yourself- when was the last time you made a decision based on real-world audience input, instead of the opinions of your executive team, or that engineering manager or sales leader?

What customers see as true value is  very different from what we believe. That’s a fact that must drive every value, opportunity and growth decision we make.

If we haven’t validated our decision with multiple and varied customers and prospects, then that decision is just an assumption.  Usually it’s an assumption based on our own status quo thinking.

And we all know what happens when we assume, now don’t we?