BUSINESS MAGIC®
December 21, 2006

Each issue of Business Magic® features a photo from my personal "Humor File" containing funny things I have collected from around the world. I recommend you create your own Humor File; put into it whatever you find that is funny to you; and, when you are stressed, open up your file and look through it. It works like magic to help reduce stress - and it's cheaper than therapy.

Try some more FUN STUFF and enjoy the laughs. 

 

2. The Ladder Doesn't Matter
The customer's perspective is what counts.

The team of students who put together the Howard Lake High School yearbook gathered together. Under the leadership of Sharon, a cute girl who was co-editor (and now my wife), we eagerly looked through the proofs of photographs when they arrived from the professional photographer. We were disappointed in what we saw. There were lots of wide photos of masses of students but few photos of our friends’ smiling faces.

The photographer made a mistake. He had gone through a lot of work to take those wide big group shots we couldn’t use. He had hunted down a janitor and persuaded him to erect a tall stepladder in the gymnasium; he set up his camera on top of the ladder; he assembled large groups of students and posed them in front of the ladder; over and over he went up and down the ladder adjusting the lighting and repositioning the groups. After all that work, he was proud of the resulting photographs. But they weren’t great pictures. There were so many people on the pictures that the faces were too small to see.

We asked him where the close-up pictures were. We knew he took some. But he hadn’t bothered to print them. He was so proud of the hard work he did to get the group pictures from the top of the ladder, that he thought those were the only pictures worth printing.

We, however, wanted to clearly see our fellow students. We wanted faces not masses of miniature bodies. He forgot what mattered to us, his customer. The only way we got to see what we wanted was to insist that he print a contact sheet containing every picture he took.

I’ve seen this mistake repeated over and over in many fields

• A software designer thinks a function is important because he is proud of his work. The feature may be difficult to implement but he persevered through untold hours of work until he succeeded, it may be brilliantly clever, or it may be unique in the industry. Those things may impress his fellow software designers but to the customer, a function is important because it makes his job easier or makes his business more successful. The software function may be bland, common, and easy to program but the development effort doesn’t really matter to the one who uses the software.
  


• A magician thinks a trick is impressive because he spent years perfecting a particularly difficult slight of hand maneuver. Other magicians may be awed by his skill but his audience doesn’t care about that. They are impressed by what they see. They don’t care if it was done through exceptional skill or a gimmicked box he bought at a magic store.

How I applied the lesson of the ladder

• When I decided to create a new demo video, I hired Gary Smith, a professional video producer, to select the video clips to use. He watched about 100 hours of my presentations. He figured out what my customers want to see in order to understand what I can do for them. Those are the clips he selected. I would tend to show the things I am most proud of – the parts I worked on a lot, that were difficult to do, or that show me doing something no other speaker does. But Gary selected great video clips I would never have considered because he looked at it from the eyes of the customer, not the speaker.
  


• When I consult for a company I don’t charge for my time. What matters to my clients is the value of my ideas and insights, not the number of hours I spend on it. Unlike a plumber, I don’t get paid by the hour. I get paid for the measurable effect on the business. Whether it takes me 2 weeks or 2 minutes it not important to my client. What is important is the improvement my ideas have on the company I’m helping.

How about you?
Look at your marketing and sales materials. Are you showing  your product’s value through your eyes or your customer’s eyes? Are you emphasizing what you are proud of or what matters to your customer? It doesn’t matter to your prospects how clever you are or how much work you devoted to something. They don’t care about your effort; they care about the effect.

Like our high school yearbook team, your prospects don’t care if you had to go through great effort to get a difficult photo while teetering at the top of a 12’ stepladder. They only care if what you offer them meets their needs. That is what makes them decide to buy. Lose the ladder and give your customers close up photos if that is what they want. The ladder doesn’t matter.


If you want Randall Munson to deliver one of his powerful, award-winning presentations at your event, contact him now.


3. Business Magic® Registered by US Patent Office

We are excited to announce to our readers that on October 24, 2006, the name Business Magic® was registered to us by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Nearly two years after our initial filing, we now have in our hands the official United States of America Certificate of Registration – complete with a big gold seal. Because we hold the trademark for Business Magic®, we are assured of the exclusive right to use the name.

Now, we have to go through every reference we have to Business Magic and change the little TM symbol (™) to the little R with a circle around it (®). Oh well.

4. New Video

The new preview video that I referred to in the “Ladder Doesn’t Matter” article above is now available for you to see on my web site. Previously we had only the abbreviated version available, but now we have the entire video for you to see.

You can watch it with either Windows Media Player or Quicktime and you have the option to select your connection speed to optimize the clarity of the video. Please use this link to see and hear an exciting sample of my live presentations.


If you enjoy this Business Magic® electronic magazine, will you do something for me? Simply forward this issue to the people you know who could benefit from it. Or, simply tell them they can sign up for their own subscription. All they have to do is go to http://www.CreativelySpeaking.com to sign up. It is that easy. You and I want to share the magic so pass it on. 
They’ll thank you for it and so will I.


5. The Winner.

Following Randall's keynote, The Serious Business of HUMOR at the Bank Depository User Group Conference in Tampa, a drawing was held for an autographed copy of two books by best selling author, Randall Munson.

Autographed copies of Randall's newest books
Creativity 101 and Creativity 102
were won by Chris Buck of
J.P. Morgan, Reynoldsburg, OH

See more about these popular books that will help you be more creative: 

If you want Randall Munson to deliver one of his powerful, award-winning presentations at your event, contact him now.