I spotted the picture above in a recent Seth Godin post which commented (logically) on it’s implications regarding delegation and getting additional resources.
Interestingly my immediate take on it was actually rather different – customer perceptions – an example of how a picture can stimulate different thoughts with different people!
I’ve often found that, to start with, customers only have a pretty rough idea of what I do to achieve a given result. I’m sure that if you asked them they’d give all sorts of replies (although none as sexy as the ones above left). As customers become clients through developing a ‘mutually beneficial relationship’, clarification naturally arises. However this may be a rather slow process as it depends on building up trust and credibility and so on.
In addition, and more importantly, as mutual understanding increases so do additional business opportunities. This has happened to me time and time again and my reaction to this was that it was simply serendipity. However, on reflection, that’s not really the case – I encouraged my luck by being passionate about something else I was working on at the time and which my customer also got interested in.
How can I systematically improve on this?
The picture above reminded me (in broad terms) that it’s important to explain to customers the different things you’re doing (especially germinal projects), at an appropriate level, from the earliest stages and not to limit oneself to just the issue at hand. It may come to nothing but it may also sow the seed for something bigger and better.
This overlaps with a previous post on realising goals indirectly as well as to The Role Of Luck In Life And Projects.
Picture credit: here.
Steps & Leaps 