Business = Serving The Other
Authored By: Luke Waite
The Other’s Experience
At some point every business has to realize that they are offering a thing, whether that is a good, service, time, or specialty. Every business is offering something to the other. The other, being a person who is not you and they possibly differ from you in sociopolitical perspectives, ideals, monetary position, age, sexual orientation, nationality, etc. The point I am trying to make is that a business must, at some point realize that it is fundamentally for other people. That said, I would like to offer that business should not necessarily be about values and a mission statement, though I think those things both crucial, but they should be about the other who will experience said product, experience, or service.
Make The Other’s Experience BETTER!
I know, you are thinking, what about products that are not necessarily going to be consumed or enjoyed by a human like a dog food or a garden hose? My response is this, even though a human is not consuming the dog food they have to carry it home so what if the dog food bag came with wheels on it to make it easier to get it home? Or what if the garden hose would somehow coil itself up instead of always being a tangled mess on the side of a human’s house? Humans inevitably come into contact with most items that they purchase and are thus inherently affected by them regardless of whether or not they are the ones who are directly consuming the items. So why not create items, services, and experiences with humans in mind? What would the world be like if this were so? What could humans achieve that they have yet to be able to? What would they be saved from that they originally had to suffer through? More importantly, what would their experience of your business be like with the other in mind?
Passion Is The Problem
The issue here becomes passion. Passion is great and obviously a needed component of most business owners. The problem is that people have to understand that their “passion project” is not what people care about. NOPE! It’s about the person’s experience of your passion and that is just what needs to be harnessed. Just like a fire…it’s pretty cool in your house if it is in a fire place but it’s also pretty bad if it is just in your house and not in a fireplace.
The Key!
Obviously, passion is great and needed to create a dynamic business that others want to find themselves connected to but it needs to be harnessed by a clear communication. Here’s where the mission, vision, values comes in. Like I said earlier, the mission vision values are not everything but they are something, especially if your business has more people involved in it than just you! Why? It’s simple, if you cannot describe in a word, phrase, or sentence what you are trying to do as a business, then neither can the people who work with you. Even worse, your customers don’t really know what you do. Sure they will know that you sell dog food or garden hoses but they won’t understand that your business is different because not only do you want offer healthy dog food; you also want the people who buy the dog food to be healthy too and not break their backs carrying the bags. Or, they will know you as the garden hose person rather than the person who makes an eco friendly garden hose that automatically coils itself back up. There’s a difference, and you have to be able to communicate the difference between you and everyone else easily, quickly, and powerful. After all, if you aren’t serving the other, you are serving yourself.