The Linchpin, and Achilles Heel, To Driving Crazy Profitable Growth

The hiring manager, interviewing an elite and coveted candidate, described/explained/pounded home all of her wants and needs for the open position, wasting 30 valuable minutes.

The CEO, faced with a hungry and willing enterprise level decision-maker, droned on (what seemed like forever) about features, benefits, his company, and – of course – himself.

The keynote speaker, selfishly driven to share her self-professed brilliance, presented slide upon slide of statistics, opinions and personal quotes, never acknowledging a once-hopeful audience.

In the above real-life examples, the hiring manager, salesperson and keynote speaker suffer from runaway egotism, narcissism and pomposity – not to mention a misguided lust to “make the sale!” – each an Achilles Heel and primary obstacle to achieving sustainable PRG (profitable revenue growth).  Sadly, these situations occur more often than not.

Conversely, curio-compassion (curiosity + compassion) is a no tradeoff requirement to employing ethnography, the linchpin to “seeing what others miss,” that prized skill which serves as the foundational building block to designing insane customer demand.  After all, shouldn’t the customer’s world be a type of petri dish, where keen observation and study occurs?

Yes, you read that correctly.  No ethnography, no innovation.  No innovation, no “new truths” that forge fiercely loyal customer-advocates.  No new truths, no demand.  And when there’s no demand, you can expect to live in a world of sameness, where the race to the bottom is not only probable, it’s damn near guaranteed.

Please remember:  The only reason the sales organization exists is because demand does not.

Had the hiring manager been truly interested in her amazing candidate, she would have increased the value and strength of both her and her company.  Had the CEO asked the enthusiastic buyer important questions about their world, identifying the “unspoken need,” a cherished new and lucrative client would have been secured.  And had the keynote speaker engaged his audience, seeking to understand, his reputation and consultancy would have flourished.

To be interestING, one must be interestED.  And it’s the interesting people who succeed in the third millennium.

NOTE:  If you’d like to learn more about how ethnography and demand creation drives elite profitable growth, please get your copy of Clean Slate today, now available for Amazon Kindle.