A client asked me the other day... "Zac - If you were ‘King of the World’ what would you change?”
And that is a really good question. In our world there would be three things that I would change:
The First Thing I would change:
Our innate need to fiddle with anything and especially things we know nothing about. Nothing upsets any professional more than having clients alter formulas to suit themselves. Change things because they can. Often times it feels like clients will do anything possible to ruin perfectly effective ideas.
Hire an expert and do what they say that would be a good change. However, most people hire an expert hoping to have their usually incorrect views reinforced.
The Second Thing I would change:
Implementation – the rarest thing in the world are clients who implement effectively. I suspect that if you look at the top earners in any profession they are also the best implementers in the profession.
The faster you can implement the faster you make money. All the planning and strategy in the world won’t make you money until you’ve implemented.
It would be more satisfying to work with clients who are better implementers. However, because it is the make or break skill, it is almost better if our ability to implement becomes more valuable but I digress.
The Third Thing I would change:
The mentality: Why don’t I just do it online? It’s cheaper. I’m a bit neither here nor there on this. The upside is that the universe ultimately punishes stupidity – in the business world often with bankruptcy or a competitor stealing your customers/market share. All the same, I would rather we all grow and evolve.
However, it is far from an attribute we want in clients. Being irrationally cheap is suicide in business and it stems from how we all act as customers – we are largely conditioned to buy on price. And price should only come into your consideration when you are buying commodities.
There you have it. Three things I would change to make my life easier and the world a better place.
