How do we create services that clients really want to buy?
I think some of the advice we see needs a little more thought.
We can see the past very clearly, we believe.
When you look back things often arrange themselves in straight lines, a clear route from A to B.
I’ll let you into a secret.
Sometimes people even invent straight lines because they make for better stories of how they, as the hero, started with few resources, encountered adversity and overcame it.
But when it comes to the future, we have much less to go on.
Just because something worked in the past is no reason why it should in the future.
In some cases, success using one method is almost a guarantee that it will not work again because the market and competition respond and adapt.
This is the case with many new marketing strategies, once everyone uses them they lose their value.
A real path is often more complex, one that’s carved rather than trodden.
But that isn’t to say we can’t learn from the path. We shouldn’t endlessly reinvent approaches that have been tested and work.
We should just get those jobs done because we know the methods work. It’s a straightforward task and the job is execution.
Then you have those situations that are new and untested. Where you are exploring new markets, new opportunities, new sources of value.
That’s where you have to carve a path, where your capability and expertise allow you to work through a situation and figure out what to do next.
All of this goes to say some things are simple and some things are complex, and wisdom is in being to tell the difference.
Handcrafted insight 