Misunderstanding: The Cause of Most Business Failures

Travis: 00:00:15

Only gonna get through eight today.

Travis: 00:00:16

Cause I talk a lot.

Dave: 00:00:17

Mm hmm.

Travis: 00:00:18

Dave wants to talk.

Travis: 00:00:19

He's got something to say.

Travis: 00:00:20

So we're gonna let Dave talk today.

Travis: 00:00:23

The episode might only be like, three minutes.

Dave: 00:00:25

We've all heard that one.

Travis: 00:00:26

It'll be like three minute long episode.

Travis: 00:00:28

Dave, what do you think about that?

Travis: 00:00:29

It's good.

Dave: 00:00:29

It's good.

Travis: 00:00:30

Yep.

Travis: 00:00:31

All right.

Travis: 00:00:31

I had to get that inside.

Travis: 00:00:35

This is unleashing leadership.

Travis: 00:00:36

I'm Travis Mott, CEO of cplaning Group, and the guy who talks a lot.

Travis: 00:00:40

This is my co host, Dave Durcy, our chief operating officer, c planning group.

Travis: 00:00:43

He wants to talk.

Dave: 00:00:44

I listen a lot, so we're going.

Travis: 00:00:45

To let him talk more.

Travis: 00:00:47

And this podcast is all about talking about ways that we can implement great takeaways from great books into our business.

Travis: 00:00:53

And today we are working on takeaway from the book build by Tony Fadal.

Travis: 00:00:57

And Dave wants to talk about don't pick a target client you don't understand.

Travis: 00:01:02

You want to talk about that, or you want to pick something else?

Dave: 00:01:05

I mean, if you're good with it.

Travis: 00:01:10

You'Re good with it.

Dave: 00:01:11

Let's do it.

Travis: 00:01:11

All right.

Travis: 00:01:12

I'll let you cherry pick on there if you want.

Travis: 00:01:13

You only got, like, 60 other things to choose from.

Dave: 00:01:16

Yeah.

Travis: 00:01:17

If you want to change it, go ahead.

Travis: 00:01:19

But as always, do us a favor, like, or subscribe to us wherever you are listening or watching.

Travis: 00:01:23

And if you don't regularly, if you don't do that normally, I cannot say regularly.

Travis: 00:01:28

If you do not do it normally, let this be the one special exception.

Travis: 00:01:32

Let us know.

Travis: 00:01:33

Hey, I don't do it normally, but love the show or whatever.

Travis: 00:01:36

We appreciate it.

Travis: 00:01:37

Thank you very much in advance.

Travis: 00:01:40

And this episode is brought to you by the Cutthroat College planning podcast, helping people avoid going broke because of the cost of college.

Travis: 00:01:48

Check them out@nqrmedia.com.

Travis: 00:01:50

or wherever podcasts can be found.

Travis: 00:01:52

All right, so I'm pretty much done talking this episode.

Travis: 00:01:54

I'm gonna turn it over to Dave.

Travis: 00:01:55

And, Dave, tell us all about don't pick a target client you don't understand or just change the subject completely.

Travis: 00:02:03

Whatever you want to do.

Dave: 00:02:05

We'll start with this one.

Dave: 00:02:06

We'll see where it goes.

Dave: 00:02:07

I know you're gonna chime in.

Dave: 00:02:08

It's impossible.

Travis: 00:02:13

It might be impossible.

Dave: 00:02:15

The listeners like to hear you talk, Travis.

Dave: 00:02:18

Don't let anyone tell you differently.

Travis: 00:02:19

That's what.

Travis: 00:02:19

That's what Tyler says.

Travis: 00:02:20

He goes, he's the one who runs the social media.

Travis: 00:02:23

He goes, your fans want to know what's happening?

Travis: 00:02:26

I'm like, shut up.

Travis: 00:02:27

Get out of here.

Dave: 00:02:32

He does say that a lot.

Travis: 00:02:33

Yeah.

Travis: 00:02:34

He does it so innocently.

Travis: 00:02:35

He's like, hey, James, we should live stream this.

Travis: 00:02:37

Like, no, no, leave me alone.

Dave: 00:02:39

Yeah, he just wants you to live stream constantly.

Travis: 00:02:42

He does.

Travis: 00:02:42

He wants to live stream.

Travis: 00:02:43

He's like, we should live stream you sleeping?

Travis: 00:02:45

I'm like, no, we're not doing that.

Travis: 00:02:46

No, I don't, I don't understand that at all.

Dave: 00:02:49

There are reality shows that do that.

Travis: 00:02:51

So he's, if we were gonna livestream anything, it'd be your house.

Dave: 00:02:54

That would, that would be good.

Travis: 00:02:57

Yes.

Dave: 00:02:58

Yes.

Dave: 00:02:59

You'd see the red coming out a lot.

Travis: 00:03:02

There's proof, huh?

Dave: 00:03:04

Yes.

Dave: 00:03:06

Good idea.

Dave: 00:03:07

So what are we saying?

Travis: 00:03:09

Don't, don't pick.

Travis: 00:03:11

You don't understand.

Dave: 00:03:13

I think this goes for a lot of things.

Dave: 00:03:15

If you don't understand something, you shouldn't be investing in it or trying to build or grow a business around it.

Dave: 00:03:22

So if you, if your target client, this goes back to, let's, let's bring it back to some other episodes we talked about where you, you can't solve a problem that's not there.

Dave: 00:03:35

Right.

Dave: 00:03:35

Or something that people don't know is, is the problem or the challenge.

Dave: 00:03:39

So if you're trying to frame your business or your service around a client, you don't understand, what are you doing?

Dave: 00:03:48

How are you going to build that product?

Dave: 00:03:50

Right?

Dave: 00:03:50

How are you developing it?

Dave: 00:03:52

How are you going to have refresh cycles around it, any of that?

Dave: 00:03:55

You can't, because you don't understand what they're actually looking for.

Dave: 00:03:59

So what do you want to do?

Travis: 00:04:02

I see, you didn't even make it to four minutes.

Travis: 00:04:07

I told you it'd be about three.

Travis: 00:04:08

Three minutes and 50 seconds.

Dave: 00:04:09

Wait, it's going to be four right now.

Dave: 00:04:10

Let me just say.

Dave: 00:04:12

All right, we have four.

Travis: 00:04:13

All right, well, so listen, like entrepreneurs, I've seen business owners do this a lot of times, or people who want to start a business, or you go online and you get the Facebook and YouTube ads, you can start a business, make all this money doing blah, blah, blah.

Travis: 00:04:26

Right?

Travis: 00:04:28

You are not going to be successful if you do not understand your customer and businesses all the time.

Travis: 00:04:34

I got this great idea and I'm going to sell this, and this is what you know, and this is how much money you can make.

Travis: 00:04:38

And they really do not understand.

Travis: 00:04:42

Like, they either haven't identified the customer or they don't understand the customer at all, because they're not the typical customer.

Travis: 00:04:49

They think it's really cool.

Travis: 00:04:50

They think that they've got some kind of gimmick, and, like, everybody wants this.

Travis: 00:04:53

It's like, who?

Travis: 00:04:54

Who's everybody?

Travis: 00:04:55

And in their mind, when you come up with an idea, sometimes you can convince yourself, this.

Travis: 00:05:00

This is the next greatest thing, because to you, it's the next greatest thing.

Travis: 00:05:04

Or to you, you can see how everybody could be using your thing, but.

Travis: 00:05:12

And everyone that they use, you make money, and why can't you do that?

Travis: 00:05:15

There's 320 million people or whatever in the country.

Travis: 00:05:18

And so, like, if half of them bought it, and why wouldn't half of them buy it if it was only $2?

Travis: 00:05:22

You can make x amount of money, but the reality is, is that that's not actually how all that works, you know?

Travis: 00:05:28

And a lot of times, people come up with a great idea, and they're saying, yeah, this is for everybody.

Travis: 00:05:34

It's like, no, there's very little that's for everybody.

Travis: 00:05:39

Now, your great idea might become for everybody, but it's pretty hard to go out there and make it specific enough where it's solving a problem that everybody has.

Dave: 00:05:50

Do you think the bigger problem is that people don't even try to understand what client is or that they think they know and they got it wrong?

Travis: 00:06:01

It's both.

Travis: 00:06:02

I think that people.

Travis: 00:06:05

Some people are just arrogant and oblivious.

Travis: 00:06:07

They don't think it matters.

Travis: 00:06:08

They've got a good idea, and people out there will want their good idea.

Travis: 00:06:10

And if they just try hard enough, people will find their good idea.

Travis: 00:06:15

People don't buy products from people who don't understand their issue.

Travis: 00:06:21

They buy products from people who understand their issue and are passionate about solving it.

Travis: 00:06:26

They're buying the.

Travis: 00:06:30

They're engaging with the passion, and you're like, well, it's just a product or a service.

Travis: 00:06:34

It's like, yeah, but you can see when something has been designed very thoughtfully to address my issue, my pain point, or my desire, versus when something has been designed without really a lot of consideration about, you know, how my life might be like the Nas.

Travis: 00:06:53

You understand your customer, okay?

Travis: 00:06:55

You understand that they're spending 30 minutes just trying to find the damn tools, put the thing up.

Travis: 00:06:59

You know, for a dollar or $2 a box, you put a screwdriver in the thing, and it makes the installation kind of fun, and it's not hard.

Travis: 00:07:10

And.

Travis: 00:07:10

And the tool is kind of neat, and we have some of them in our cabinets at home, and you can use it over and over.

Travis: 00:07:16

It's a high enough quality, which is also unique in its own.

Travis: 00:07:19

Right.

Travis: 00:07:19

Normally when you get something that comes with a tool, quality of the tool is really junky.

Travis: 00:07:25

No, they, yeah, they give you a high quality tool.

Travis: 00:07:29

You actually feel pretty slick.

Travis: 00:07:31

Put in this unit in.

Travis: 00:07:34

So not only do you get your unit, which addresses that problem, but they've addressed the problem that you have with putting the unit in in the first place.

Travis: 00:07:41

They truly understand their customer, and they're passionate about bringing a solution to the table.

Travis: 00:07:46

You can tell when you open the box, the way it's packaged.

Travis: 00:07:49

A lot of people are missing that part just obliviously.

Dave: 00:07:53

The directions on them are great.

Dave: 00:07:55

Right.

Dave: 00:07:55

Like they walk you through.

Dave: 00:07:57

Yeah.

Dave: 00:07:58

The doorbell one, like the camera.

Dave: 00:08:00

How did.

Dave: 00:08:01

No, a lot of people don't install, like, a doorbell thing.

Travis: 00:08:04

Right.

Dave: 00:08:04

But they lay everything out for you, so it's just easy to do.

Travis: 00:08:07

Or people are, you know, stuck in their own biases.

Travis: 00:08:10

They're ignorant from a standpoint of, I talked to somebody one time, they're like, hey, look, they were talking about investing in brick and mortar stores and brick and mortar.

Travis: 00:08:25

This is when, like, Sears and everybody was going out of business because people stopped going to the box stores because they're buying everything online, and they were talking about how they really enjoy going to stores and walking around the stores because it's kind of like a social thing for them.

Travis: 00:08:39

And therefore, stores must be a good investment.

Travis: 00:08:42

No, just because you enjoy doing something doesn't make it a good idea.

Travis: 00:08:47

Well, people do that with their products and services all the time.

Travis: 00:08:50

They're like, this is really good.

Travis: 00:08:51

I like this.

Travis: 00:08:51

This solves my problem.

Travis: 00:08:54

Right.

Travis: 00:08:54

But does everybody else have the same problem you have or the same taste?

Travis: 00:08:58

If you have an eclectic taste, or let's say that you're an engineer or an inventor, a designer, and you design something that you think is absolutely fascinating, but it's confusing.

Travis: 00:09:07

Let's say that you've overcooked this thing.

Dave: 00:09:09

Mm hmm.

Travis: 00:09:11

You know, so it's a, it's a great solution if somebody gets a PhD in how to use it.

Travis: 00:09:17

Yep.

Travis: 00:09:18

I really need just something I can use.

Travis: 00:09:20

I bought an electric meter, working around the house in small projects to be able to tell if, you know, the outlet's hot or not.

Travis: 00:09:28

I've got two versions of it.

Travis: 00:09:29

One I stick in it, and it just beeps and tells me if it's on or not.

Travis: 00:09:32

And then one, I got to read a code.

Travis: 00:09:34

I actually have to, you know, learn how to use the darn thing.

Travis: 00:09:37

So one of them sits in the toolbox, and I never use it.

Travis: 00:09:40

The other one I use all the time.

Travis: 00:09:41

And when that one dies, I'll buy another one just like it because the other one is too hard just to find what I want to find, which is the.

Travis: 00:09:48

Is the socket hot or not?

Dave: 00:09:49

Nope.

Travis: 00:09:50

Right.

Travis: 00:09:51

I've got to learn a language in order to use it.

Travis: 00:09:53

So you.

Travis: 00:09:54

They've designed a great product, but it's not for somebody like me to use.

Travis: 00:09:59

It's for somebody who really wants to nerd out a little bit too much.

Dave: 00:10:03

Yeah.

Travis: 00:10:04

You see it with software.

Travis: 00:10:05

A lot of times, or websites go to a website, somebody's packed all this great stuff in there, and it's wonderful, but it's not for you.

Travis: 00:10:13

You can't figure out your way around it.

Travis: 00:10:15

Where's this?

Travis: 00:10:15

Why is it over there?

Travis: 00:10:16

Why is that there?

Travis: 00:10:17

Whatever.

Dave: 00:10:17

Yep.

Travis: 00:10:18

All you wanted to know was where the damn addresses for the office.

Travis: 00:10:21

And you can't find it because you got all this crap.

Travis: 00:10:24

You got a wade through.

Dave: 00:10:25

Yep.

Dave: 00:10:26

When you mentioned retail, like, think about.

Dave: 00:10:29

Think about Amazon.

Travis: 00:10:30

Right.

Dave: 00:10:30

What was, what was, like, the biggest issue with online shopping for clothes and stuff was like, well, I don't know how it's gonna fit.

Dave: 00:10:36

And then what?

Dave: 00:10:37

Now I got go get.

Dave: 00:10:39

Go to, you know, get postage or whatever, and now return.

Dave: 00:10:42

And then it's a whole process.

Dave: 00:10:43

And I got to pay to ship it back.

Dave: 00:10:45

So Amazon gives you free returns and for 30 days.

Dave: 00:10:49

And they, you don't even have to package it back up any.

Dave: 00:10:51

They understood what was holding that the last people back from, like, buying things online is that I can't touch it.

Dave: 00:10:58

I can't look at it.

Dave: 00:11:00

I don't know how it's gonna work.

Dave: 00:11:02

Well, if you don't like it, you could just return it.

Dave: 00:11:04

Right.

Travis: 00:11:04

So make it easy.

Dave: 00:11:06

Yeah.

Travis: 00:11:07

Yep.

Travis: 00:11:07

Make whatever that, whatever the headache is, make that easy.

Travis: 00:11:12

You know, sell on the emotion and the feelings that people get.

Travis: 00:11:17

But, you know, just to go back.

Travis: 00:11:18

To answer your question.

Travis: 00:11:19

Yeah, I think.

Travis: 00:11:20

I think that it's.

Travis: 00:11:22

Most businesses that are failing, are failing because they're not understanding their client.

Travis: 00:11:30

They're mixing up the product of the service, matching it with.

Travis: 00:11:33

Maybe they understand a client and they're throwing junk at the client because they're just trying to make money off the client or the misunderstanding the client.

Travis: 00:11:45

And so they're trying to sell something that's of quality, but the target is wrong.

Travis: 00:11:52

Right.

Travis: 00:11:52

They're not.

Travis: 00:11:53

They're not focused in the right direction.

Travis: 00:11:55

And so people, the right people aren't seeing or understanding that it can be a solution for them.

Dave: 00:12:03

Yep.

Dave: 00:12:05

Twelve minute episode.

Dave: 00:12:06

I think I had three minutes and 30 seconds of talking, so it's pretty.

Travis: 00:12:10

That's not.

Travis: 00:12:10

That's not my.

Travis: 00:12:11

That one.

Travis: 00:12:11

Come on, man.

Travis: 00:12:12

Like, I was quiet, and I waited until you.

Travis: 00:12:16

You.

Travis: 00:12:17

You threw up the.

Dave: 00:12:18

Yes.

Dave: 00:12:18

And then as I look over and I see you giggling now your giggles.

Dave: 00:12:24

You were giggling in the background.

Travis: 00:12:25

I can't win.

Travis: 00:12:26

I don't know.

Dave: 00:12:28

You did good.

Travis: 00:12:30

Well, thank you.

Travis: 00:12:31

Have a good night.