has the expression the customer is always right sort of bothered you hi this is Shannon Waller and welcome to the inside strategic coach podcast with Dan Sullivan Dan you have a completely different way of thinking about this particular topic and you said something recently which really struck home with me and I know it was relevant for you it's something you've been thinking about for a while and what you've decided that if it's the right audience the audience is always right can you talk a little bit more about that yeah well first of all the statement that I always rebelled against was that the customer is King because there can only be one king and everybody else is a servant or a subject of the king okay and I'm not a servant and I'm not a subject and that's just who I am and I don't have Kings in my life I don't have monarchs in my life I understand the principle and I live a lot of the time during the year in Canada and on our currency the Queen of England is prominently featured on some of the bills I think it's neat you know I think the monarchy is neat I've really spent a lot of time reading the history of the British monarch especially over the last 100 years and I think it's a really neat thing that the British have but it wouldn't really matter to me whether somewhere in the politics of the country I live in the queen figures prominently that doesn't bother me at all but in terms of my day-to-day life and in terms of my interaction with customers and clients in the marketplace I do not think about them of being King and always being right the way I see my entrepreneurial clients who are in my strategic coach workshops which is about 500 I have about 500 at the present level of where I am am is that the best of them are my partners okay not all of them are my partners but the best of them are my partners and what I'm looking for is to constantly increase the number of clients that I'm coaching to the point that these are the only types of clients I have who are creative partners with me and what I mean by that is that they're bringing in their Ambitions into the workshop they're bringing their skills into the workshop and I'm bringing a lawn structure and process that's been developed personally for 45 years and organizationally for 30 years and I want to see how combining what we've created in our growth and what they've created in their growth how we can put these together to create entirely new ideas new Concepts new Thinking Tools new thinking structures and processes so all the concept and I create basically a new workshop every 90 days and have you know approaching 30 years right now it'll be in November of this particular year it'll be every quarter that'll be 120 quarters I've created a workshop that's at least 50% new material and where does this material comes from it comes from a partnership that I have in every one of my workshops where I put out certain ideas just perhaps writing it down on a whiteboard Smartboard I use a thing called a Smartboard and I'll write down an idea and I said what do you think about this idea does this resonate with you at all and I said let's talk about some thoughts that come off of this thought and they do that and I'll see if the idea which I've come up with oftentimes from a previous workshop and I say is this a foundation for something that's really going to be useful to everybody in the room and then I'll work with them and then maybe the next Workshop if it goes really well in the first workshop I'll create a little thinking structure you know a little form that they can just do in their workshop notes and I'll just play with it and if it keeps going and I have about 10 workshops to work with in a quarter by Workshop five if this idea has gotten stronger then this is going to be a major major Concept in the program but if I'm not getting the creative partnership with the client and they're not taking to it it's dead you know it's interesting thought but I'll know about that probably within the first half hour of conversation around the idea so here's the thing just thinking on my own the best I can be is 50% with a new idea okay I have a lot of experience in creating Concepts and tools but the best that this can get me with the new ideas to the 50% line the other 50% has to come from the creative response of the clients who are in the workshop so I have the 10 times ambition program and I also have a new program called the game Cher program and everybody in the game changer program one of the criteria that got them is that they're tremendous creative Partners when new ideas are being discussed they have a lot of thoughts about this they have a lot of input they have examples and they love the activity of creating new strategic coach ideas mhm as another coach it's such a relief to recognize that your audience the clients are your partners in this because I think one of the big issues and this is true for anyone who delivers content of any kind is like oh my gosh did I get it right and you're talking about sometimes before a workshop a new workshop you're it's hard to sleep a little bit both from excitement and whatever else and recognizing that it's a co-created experience which I think the most fulfilling experiences for all of us in business are those ones that are co-created so I know I go in so calm now because I've had this thinking structure that I'm like oh I can't wait to see what they have to say as opposed to I have to have all the answers which is incredibly stressful and how can we know what 25 or 30 or 50 in your case people are thinking you can't so it's an amazing framework to go into thinking okay you know if it's the right audience their input's going to be incredibly valuable and help me develop this idea and if not I'll know really quickly and come up with something else yeah so there's two parts the way we got started with this the first one is that I mention that I reject the notion that the customer is King they're not King and they don't see themselves as kings you know what they're looking for is creativity because it helps them and as they see me how I create new Concepts in their workshop they more and more utilize their best customers and clients to create the ideas and the new structures processes in some cases products and some cases services that they are developing inside of their own business so I'm role modeling how they can be just perpetually and increasingly creative in their own entrepreneurial career we're doing this in this Workshop but they have their own in quotation workshops and every time they meet with customers and clients they should turn it into a creativity workshop and hands down if I get every one of our top entrepreneurs and strategic coach to identify who their favorite alltime customers and clients are they all have this quality of being creative Partners well that's one of the points I want to really draw out here is is the Right audience is always right and there's a big difference between the wrong audience cuz we all given presentations somewhere in our careers where it fell flat you thought something was brilliant and they didn't agree that's happened to me that's happened to you so it's interesting and I think instead of trashing our ideas sometimes we have to think okay well is it the Right audience or not can you talk a little bit to that because that's a key thing and actually part of one of our upcoming ctly books yeah well the thing about it let's examine the word right because we've taken care of Monarch so let's examine the word right and it's right for me the Right audience is right for me in other words I'm looking for an audience where I'm just exploring a new idea and the way they respond to me is really right for me because they're supplying the other 50% I can't develop the idea unless I get their input and the best of the Strategic coach entrepreneurs you know they're right in the pool with me yeah you know when I bring up the IDE this oh that's really great oh yeah yeah and then I'll try to get as many people involved and I'll ask questions about what people have said and you know I have enough graphic capability that I can sketch out using arrows and circles and boxes and stars that I can actually give a graphic picture of how this idea actually works and it's beautiful and they're so excited what I find is when we're in that process of actually creating a new idea and it really goes somewhere okay I have to tell you my greatest skill is I know now within about 5 10 minutes that this has got life to it or you know nice try but usually if the idea I put up there the first time is not exactly resonating with them the conversation will actually uncover a much more resonant topic so so here it is I've been saved enormous number of hours on my own trying to develop an idea within 10 minutes I know not quite right but there's something that's come out in the conversation that's even better and everybody in the room know it's all said oh man that wow that was an insight and I say great it's mine now which is such a different mindset then I have to have the idea if they don't like it it's got to be packaged perfectly right you know and I have to do a lot of research on this the only research I need is the people who would be in the position to buy it well one of your expressions for decades now has been always and only test on check writers yeah that's where you want to get feedback from because if they don't like it kill it and if they love it good develop it yeah and I think that there's a transformation that's happened in me okay since I first started coaching and I'm I'm just going to put two thoughts together here ego and capability I find that most people who are idea creators they have a sense well I am totally sold on this idea and now I'm going to get people to accept this idea out there and that's not capability talking that's ego talking o okay and what I've notice as I've gotten more and more skillful of using the input from each of my strategic coach workshops and I mean you got to at some point just tell the truth about who is showing up at these workshops and these are just really uniquely creative uniquely optimistic uniquely experienced skillful people energetic and I said what a resource I have that I can test an idea on them and I have to tell you there are people who don't write checks for any ideas which they can see immediately personally used useful and that's what I love about entrepreneurs and especially my clients the very fact that they're writing a check for this experience and they'll tell you when you're wasting their time they'll tell you when this is not relating to me at all and to test your ideas on anyone who's not writing a check it gives you no meaning is there anything real about this you know and I've seen entrepreneurs who are so frustrated they're very creative people but they're very fr frustrated but they want to test on everybody in the world that they know before they actually take it in and test it on somebody who could actually write a check so their friends their spouse the team their neighbors the other people who hang out with them their social network they test the idea in all these people and they get any amount of different kind of feedback but none of it has to do with someone says this is such a good idea and I can take this and I can use use it during the next 90 days and you just paid for this Workshop this idea just pays for this Workshop this pays for the fact you know that I've traveled I'm using up three days to come and see you for one day and I have to tell you this new idea makes the whole trip worthwhile makes the check I've written for the whole year and I'm listening for that feedback I'm listening for that feedback you know I say the most brilliant idea in the world if nobody wants to pay is a really bad idea the idea that you think is a bad idea and people get excited about and write a check for it that's a really good idea I love it well and again it's willing to focus on the capability and the contribution rather than your ego about it makes a difference Dan earlier today you talked about another transformation that's happened with you out of this and that was your ability to take a compliment can you talk about that CU When people tell you oh that really made a difference you're kind of willing to believe them now well again go back to the phrase if it's the right audience the audience is always right in other words I'm at a level now after 45 years of coaching myself and 30 years of our organization that gradually the entrepreneurs who are in my workshops are first class individuals okay so any feedback I get from my strategic coach entrepreneurs is real stuff and they say I just want to tell you this has made a crucial difference and I don't second guess anything they say this is making a crucial difference and I just take it fully I had one guy who fought me it's very very interesting and he'll know who I'm talking about when he listens to this but for the first four or five years in the program he just scaled and sometimes he'd get up halfway through the morning he'd disappear and he'd come back halfway through the afternoon and he said I was so disgusted by the first two hours that he said I decided to fly back home but I couldn't get any flights that really worked so I said well I paid for the workshop I might as well go back and see if it got any better during the course of the day and uh you know you sit there like this and the most resistant clients I've discovered in my workshops are the one who who are sitting closest in the back of the room to the door to leave you know and I think other speakers probably have this experience that you know you can tell the ones they're not buying in but he stuck with it and this has been about 10 11 years now and for about three years now he makes sure he gets the seat that's closest to me okay and we chat and he wants to chat with me all through the day you know when other people are working he says I just want to ask you a question about something so he's just completely bed into what happens to him when he comes to his Workshop but one day he told me he said I just want to tell you something the three most important people in my life are my wife my child my son and you and I said I'm number three he said yeah I said ain't chance of moving up he says be happy with what you got he says he says be happy he says you're number three nobody else is number three and I saidh is that he says I do totally different kind of thinking when I'm with you and he said your ideas really get me to think about my thinking I said well that's a phenomenal compliment I just want to tell you that that's a incredible reward for me and I feel it deeply cuz I know the journey he's gone through since he came into the program and I know that I was skillful not to allow that to create negativity or animosity I knew he was strugg I mean you don't keep coming back to something that you totally dislike for 5 years without some sort of transformation going on say it's your check it's your trip it's your time and I knew he was really struggling with some things you know and I said I'm just going to hold the space here and he'll come by but it's really interesting that's fascinating so Dan how can people take action on this idea that if it's the right audience the audience is always right what are some really practical things that people can do as soon as they finish listening today and put this into play the easiest thing to do is write down your idea if you're just meeting with one person who's actually one of your clients and just write this idea down and leave enough room on the paper to write down their thoughts when it comes back and say I've got this idea and I just want to bounce it off you this has a lot of meaning for me I just wondered if it has the same kind of meaning for you and they'll say well can you give me a little bit of context for where this idea came from and they say well I can really see where you're going there yeah that you know not exactly this but this reminds me of such and such and I said oh that's really interesting so I write their idea down here and gradually over about a half hour or an hour I said do you think this be a concept that would work for other people he said well I think you'd have to really clean it up I think you know you have to take it now and put it into some sort of process proc where I can write down my experience and then see the difference between what this thought would do and other things but I said do you mind if I go away and I actually clean this up and check it with you and he said oh I'd love it he said I'd really love it the second time we get back together the idea has already worked in his mind so he's actually taking the idea and he's actually working with it and he comes back he's I'll tell you something there's three things that I really thought of in relationship your idea and this is a partnership going on well I love that and I love the no ego part of it I think that that's very powerful and it's interesting the other part about this whole conversation to me is that we love contributing to the development of other people's ideas you know when we get to be that sounding board when we get to contribute our thinking rather than having someone go back and spend hours and days and weeks and months and research and packaging and if we don't love it then it's our fault you know to actually be part of that development process is incredibly rewarding so I I think one of my takeaways from this conversation is like people really enjoy the process of co-creation of ideas and processes and systems and deliverables so the more we include our right fit audience in this the better it will be the higher the Buy in marketing people know this and I think the more successful overall will be and your creativity never has to end this is a lifelong process no it gets stronger and you're who you use as partners keeps getting bigger and and better they become quicker they can first of all to a certain extent the process of including them as partners actually trains them to be even better Partners as you go along and that immediately goes out into their world of how they're interacting with the clients and customers that they have and you know I just want to go back to that ego capability the reason why people have huge egos when they introduce new ideas because they know they don't have the capability to deal with the feedback if somebody sees it differently and so they try to overpower the situation you know with research with glitzy packaging they try to overpower the situation the reason is they're lacking total confidence that they can actually respond to feedback the more you find out that responding to the feedback is the entire capability that you need you don't need any ego I love every second of that Dan thank you I'm excited for people to be clear about who the right fit audience is and then to really take whatever feedback that is to help them better develop their ideas to really appreciate how they're being useful and contributing to other people I think this is a a much higher elevated way of looking at our audiences thank you thank you Shannon