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30 Days Of Genius Blog: Brian Solis
Ready to get your mind blown? I didn’t know who Brian Solis was before this interview, but I want to know everything about him now. Take everything you know about running a business, creating AND consuming products and throw it all away. This guy is in the business of changing everything (in a good way).
I have taken his interview on 30 Days of Genius with Chase Jarvis, extracted the information, and used it to answer common questions by readers just like you, who are looking to take their lives to the next level, or at least a different level than the one they are on.
Please enjoy.
The Market Has Never Been Busier. How Do I Differentiate?
I know what you think I am going to say, “You need to think outside the box.” Well, you are wrong. You need to re-think what is “in” and “out” of the box all together.
You need to change the rules.
Re-think everything. Re-evaluate everything. Re-build everything.
Sound a little daunting? I know. But it is the way things are in 2017, and it’s projecting out exponentially in the near and distant future. Everything is different now.
The world revolves around the consumer. Companies aren’t selling products, they are selling experiences, with the customers at the center of it all. Everything revolves around them. We are living in an
Ego-system ecosystem.
How Do We Adjust To This New Consumer?
Great question.
We need to start designing the experience just as much if not more than the actual product or service itself.
First, we need to articulate what an experience even is: It is an emotional reaction to a moment.
What is that moment in relationship to you? Whatever you want it to be. You create the moment(s) by tapping in to raw human emotion.
It is not good enough to be good anymore. In fact, it’s not good enough to be great. You have to understand the role you want to be in a customer’s life and then create around that. It is a whole new level of connecting.
In order to do that you need to ask yourself a few questions. What do you do very well? What do you do better than anyone else? Now, how can you turn that in to an ecosystem for the Ego-System? How will people talk about you? Before they interact with you directly? After they interact with you? How do you follow up with customers? How do you appeal to new ones? What do you want someone to feel after they are done with you?
All of your answers are opportunities to create magic.
It is all about relationships. You need to be intentional about everything you do. It all has a role, a purpose, a context, and connectability. This new outlook will change everything from design to marketing. When you really look at people and what is relevant to them, how they are experiencing things, it gives you the gift of empathy. That empathy gifts you an entirely new perspective. You must engage with people in the way that they are wired, the way they want to interact.
Once you understand the nuances of the customer, and their experience, you understand how you can be better, and what is possible. It is a human-based design because you are designing for humans, not a group.
I Am Not Tech Savvy, How Do I Innovate?
It’s not about tech. In fact, innovation rarely starts with the technology. The experience you want to create develops the technology. Everything is open for something different. Everything. People don’t stop to ask why enough. Why is this that way? Why do we do it like this? How else could this be done? We just take things at face value, or how “it’s always been done.”
It’s time to reinvent based on the people we are trying to serve. Instead of just tacking on to the old technology, the old way of doing things, we need to start looking at a consumer’s experience with us holistically. Think of every single possible experience a customer can have and build to that. We haven’t done that in the past, so you will automatically be thinking innovatively.
Stop looking within your market for innovative ideas. Truly innovative ideas come from elsewhere and are brought back, merged with what you already have, and creates something new. That is true innovation.
Don’t take anything for granted. Legacy thinking doesn’t work. Outside the box thinking doesn’t work. All you are doing is putting yourself in to a different box because you haven’t changed the rules. Innovation starts outside the norms. You have to start with the customer experience before you work on the technology. The horses pull the cart, not the other way around. That way, your innovation will always have intent.
No matter what you are building or creating, you will never achieve greatness without completely exposing yourself.
Quotes
What is an experience?
People will forget what you did, they will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
We need to ask more why, and what if.
Innovation starts outside the norms.
Brian Solis Links
Chase Jarvis Links
