Asking the right things to the wrong people
(or why good questions can lead to horseshit answers)
Once upon a time, a king with great plans for the future, tormented by the fear of leaving his work unfinished, decided to summon the wisest astronomer in the kingdom. When the expert arrived, the king asked one question: “When will I die?”.
The wise one examined the stars for three days and nights, and returned with a very specific response. “You will join the gods during a hunt, due to a heart failure, on the very day of your fifty-seventh birthday”. Disappointed, the king had the sage executed and immediately sent for the second best, known for his pragmatic approach and outstanding customer reviews.
The substitute of the recently beheaded, seeing how things were cooking, pondered for a while before accepting the challenge. After three weeks, the sage came back. “An extraordinary coincidence, Your Majesty”, he said. “The stars revealed you will die exactly one day after I do”.
Not only did the scholar get to keep his head, but also got a life of comfort and pleasure granted by the king, in the belief that a happier life would translate into longevity.
The king died first.
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White Noise & White Lies
Award-winning. Bespoke. Ethical. Honest. Committed. Friendly. Nice. Data-driven. Full-service. Leading. Passionate. Love what we do. Results-focused. Goal-oriented. Groundbreaking. Rule-breaking. Disruptive. Yet specialized. 438 combined years of experience. Seasoned. Expert. AI experts. AI pioneers. Specialized in <add more than two things>. Guaranteed. Smart. We listen. More, harder, better. We care.
Those are the mantras of my industry. Empty phrases that every agency repeats to exhaustion. Not positioning, but repetitioning.
There's so much noise everywhere. What are the lies, platitudes and tropes your industry repeats?
How do you differentiate?
Related: Personas, Funnels and Barney the Dinosaur
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Mirror, Mirror
I don’t know any marketing teams that sit down and decide to write shitty, undifferentiated content with a hidden agenda. I think the problem lies elsewhere. It has to do with incentives, pressure, and a combined lack of awareness and self-awareness.
Imagine this scenario from the intersection of your industry and mine.
- Some exciting SaaS is growing fast after an IPO.
- They need to expand their customer base while simultaneously milking more money out of paying customers to keep the stock price rising.
- They start creating features that are supposed to make your business stronger, but in fact are choke holding you into their products.
- They aggressively hire sales people and agencies, so whoever you ask will tell you they’re "the fairest of them all".
- The more agencies recruited, the less work for each. So they must quadruple their own sales content. The lie becomes ubiquitous.
- The buyer (you, for example) on the other hand, needs to go through a procurement process full of internal politics, constraints, uncertainty, budgets, hopes, and fear.
- The decision will involve an average of 11 people. You spend most of the time persuading, explaining, negotiating or bargaining with other folks.
- There’s not enough time to research, not enough understanding of the implications, so choosing the easy path of the loudest mainstream platform is the only way to be able to deflect responsibility in the future.
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Some people lie for the same reasons others drink the koolaid: Nobody wants to get their head chopped off.
It’s the reason so many companies are locked into Salesforce but don’t use it enough.
Or why the market believes Shopify’s claim to be a B2B platform, or to support growing businesses while they twist their nuts with hidden costs.
It’s the same principle behind economic bubbles, the AI Hype, and many other batshit crazy things we came to accept as normal.
If everything is tainted by this concatenation of poor choices forced by sneaky incentives, what can we do?
Related: Game of Ecommerce Thrones. BigCommerce vs. Shopify.
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Through the mirror and back to reality
We have the tough task of traversing the big digital changes ahead. We can only succeed by making good, informed decisions and changes.
Measure the truth
Analyze and measure how you’re perceived, as objectively as possible. Survey customers, research yourself. Double-check your positioning and how you’re connecting with your audience.
Put the truth into perspective
As Mr. Beast said (am I too old to quote that guy?): “Consultants are cheatcodes”. They’ve done what you’re trying to do many more times, and with a more specific, niche approach. You’re too close to your own business.
Find one you trust and ask for open advice. Value the people who can tell you what they think fearlessly. Even if it hurts, and you hate it, and it makes you want to take their heads off.
Handle the truth
If you embrace their feedback, then it’s mandatory to figure out how to apply the necessary changes. Don't let insights rot in an abandoned folder. Take action to improve your strategy, tactics, results, and revenue, through bold choices, not fear.
Related:The Hidden Costs of Inaction
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Your company is unique
This means there are no silver bullets.
No magic benchmarks, no pre-cooked recipes.
Following what’s mainstream will never lead to unique positioning and differentiation.
If everybody goes pop, go punk.
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Speaking of headless...
We don’t sell BigCommerce, or say it’s better because they’re partners. We’re partners because we think they’re the best platform for our target customer.
Santiago.-
