Your Guide to Clarity

What Does Clarity Do For You?

One of my dearest friends is going through incredible stress right now. His mom passed away Dec 30th while he was living and running his business in Thailand.  Coming back to the US to help bury her and say his final goodbyes, his Dad was hospitalized with COVID-19 on the day of the funeral. He is an only child. 

Why am I telling you this? 

Because in the midst of all the stress, and sadness, and confusion, and just plain crappiness of his situation, he created a clear decision-making framework for deciding when to enact his Dad’s DNR (Do not resuscitate) order.  That clear decision-making framework, that clarity, allowed him a large measure of peace in knowing he was making the right decisions regarding his Dad. 

And so in a time of pain and sadness, I raise a glass to this level of clarity for making my dear friends’ life a little less painful. 

He was able to make clear, empowering decisions without pain or stress in the midst of life falling down around him. 

Ask yourself: do you have that kind of decision-making framework for your business? Do you have a clarity code that makes all your major decisions not only obvious but empowering no matter what stress you’re under? 

If that answer is a roaring YES!, share it in the comments.

…and for the rest of us mere mortals who aren’t quite there yet… fear not, we’re going to walk through it. 

Building Your Clarity

 Ready? 

 There are three main components to a clarity code that drives your business towards profit. 

These are your ONES.  

1.  The ONE Customer you serve. 
2. The ONE Problem you solve for them. 
3. The ONE Promise that you make to solve the problem your customer has that you can solve. 

But Oh My Socks, Finding your ONES can be such a challenge! Especially figuring out your ONE Target customer. 

Why? Because we all want to help as many people as we possibly can and choosing just one target can feel like we’re saying no to a whole chunk of people who could get real benefit from working with us or using our products.

 But the truth is that when we choose everyone as our target or choose more than one target, we are trying to be everything to everyone and we all know that just isn’t possible. We end up 👽alienating people we could serve instead of helping them🧞‍♂️.

So how do we pick one? First off, do yourself a huge favor and write down all the people you COULD be helping (or if you’re target is an occasion, go with that). 

Get specific. 

Get real. 

 Get real specific. 

Let Me Tell You A Story… 

Once upon a time, there were two home-video formats – no, I’m not talking about DVD and Blue-Ray, though that’s a great story too, I’m talking about Betamax and VHS.  

BetaMax had a clearly superior video and sound quality.  

And VHS had
well… convenience and licensing.  

Convinced of their own awesomeness, BetaMax  LOVED their product and didn’t listen to their customers.  Their format could only record 1 hour of video at a time – causing users to switch tapes ½ way through a movie and they decided they would be the only manufacturer of the cassettes – raising the price of production. 

VHS on the other hand realized that people and movie studios paid the rent (so to speak) and focused on the needs of their customers.  VHS licensed their technology to anyone who wanted to manufacture it – this included the movie studios- which made the tapes cheaper to produce- and buy and, if cost wasn’t enough of an incentive, they could also hold 2 hours of video – which could hold most movies without switching tapes. 

So what’s the takeaway from this cautionary tale?  

LOVE your customer.  Love the problems you’re solving for them – Ditch the idea that your product is the greatest thing since sliced bread – even if it is, it does not guarantee sales, and in the game of business, profit is the only number that matters. 

Your heart, your love, your energy should go into two things that are manifested in your clarity code:

1. your customer and 
2. their problem.

You can find lots of different ways to solve whatever problem, wish, desire your customers may have. If they don’t care about one solution you’re offering, you can always move on to the next solution.  No big deal, easy pivot. Because your mission is to help these amazing humans get to where they want to be. 

But if you fall in love with the product or service or MLM you’re slinging if your mission is to sell something, you run the big risk of the customer not giving a damn and you’re $5000 and 6 months out of luck. 

Need a quick and easy way to find what problem you need to solve for your customer? 

Start by thinking about your customer and the situations all the problems your customer COULD have.  

Let’s say you make clayware and your customer is a 40-year-old suburban woman who loves all things sci-fi.  

• She could want clayware to express her fandoms in a unique, more mature way, 
• She could be looking for thoughtful wedding gifts, 
• She may want her first real dinnerware set that she’s choosing instead of hand-me-downs and Target, 
• Or she may want a special teacup she uses when she reads to make her feel like she’s getting some real “me” time in the middle of a hectic week. 

All these are problems, wishes, desires, you can solve with your clayware. 

Pick one and build your messaging, services, products, marketing, and any team promotions you may do with other creators around that problem, wish or desire you’re helping her with. To see the work of how one company is killing it with solving a problem for their customers, check out this page here (no they didn’t pay me for the plug, and I get nothing if you order, I just like them and think they do a great job nailing their clarity code) >>> https://www.teaandabsinthe.com

Are You Missing the Most Critical Aspect of Clarity? 

The third and final, and the most critical ingredient in your clarity code is the promise you make to your audience that you can solve a specific problem for them. 

As a company, what promise are you making? 

Do you promise to organize the world’s information like google or to help brides and grooms express their deepest appreciation to their friends and family? 

See, once you have the inputs of a clearly defined, specific one-person customer and the problems they have that you can solve, the promise ties them all together with a bow to give you ultimate clarity.  

That ultimate clarity drives your company. 

It drives who you market to, where, why, and how. 

It drives your pricing strategy. 

It drives the kind of people you hire. 

It drives your product offerings. 

It brings everything in your company into complete alignment. 

What promise are you making your customers? 

You got this!