Tag Archives: needs

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How to Make Your Customer a Hero

Everybody wants to be a hero! We all want to be the shining star that our family, friends, peers, industry, and customers look up to!

However, to be that hero, a business leader must take a counterintuitive step backwards and become a supporting character.

Our customers do not want to hire a hero, they want to be the hero!

The best thing we can do for our businesses and careers is to make the customer the hero. In doing so, we will accelerate our business and career and, in a round about way, become heroes ourselves!

What does this supporting character look like? Well, Luke Skywalker would never have succeeded without Yoda by his side to equip and guide him. James Bond would have died in his first movie if Q had not outfitted him with state of the art gear. This theme repeats over and over again in movies, comic books and in real life!

No great leader has ever risen to the top without being supported and guided along the way by a cast of supporting characters. We all have teachers, mentors, coaches, and advocates in our personal and professional journeys that have shaped us into who we are today. This applies to world leaders, business people, innovators, athletes and entrepreneurs. It applies to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, and to you, me and our customers!

So, how do you become the supporting character and make your customer the hero?

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Acres of Diamonds

Think Big Things and Then Do Them

This week’s book review is Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell.


Conwell was a war hero, lawyer, businessman, educator, orator, minister, and visionary who is probably most famous for founding Temple University and for his trademark lecture “Acres of Diamonds.” This book is a transcript of the lecture along with a biography of his life and a commentary of the impact he has made on the world before his death in 1925.

The central point of the Acres of Diamonds lecture is that we do not need to look in exotic places to find business opportunity. Business opportunities are all around us. All we need to do is change our focus to looking at the needs of society and the people around us . . . If we strive to serve their needs, business opportunity will present itself!

My takeaway from this book are these three statements from Conwell’s lecture:

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8 Easy Ways to Uncover Your Customers Wants and Needs

Wants and needs can be completely different! What I want for a car (fast, high horsepower, flashy) is far from what I need (gas efficient, low maintenance, dependable). Similarly, what your customer wants and what they really need can be worlds apart.

The success of your business depends on you understanding this difference and working with the customer to ensure what you provide meets or exceeds their expectations!

I wrote in a previous post about when I was brought in by a client to redo engineering work that another contractor had outsourced overseas. The contractor was looking to reduce project costs by sending the bulk of their engineering to a lower cost country. Unfortunately, they did not control this work close enough.