Lately, I have been asked to tell the story about Sixthman’s journey and laced throughout the entire story are instances where we either listened to our customers or asked them for help.  Everytime we paid attention and let them lead us, it worked.  When we braved it alone, we sometimes stumbled and had to ask for forgiveness.

So why are we having all these meetings and brainstorms about how to solve some of our challenges?

What would Tom Sawyer have done? Or was it Huck Finn who convinced Tom Sawyer to paint the fence for him?

At our company retreat last month, I went out on a limb and told the staff that I believed the companies that will thrive the most in the next decade are the companies that invite their customers to help solve their biggest challenges.  It would be a shame if I was right and we weren’t one of those companies.

Think about it:

1) Build a healthy relationship with your customers demonstrating your genuine respect for them.

2) Invite them to tell you what they want, think, feel and don’t like.

3) Do what they say.

4) Laugh at how simple becoming a better company is.

After all, the world is no longer about having the answers.  (Google took care of that.) It’s about knowing how and where to find them and we think we know just where to look.

We will be phoning our friends soon to help us answer some tough questions.

Andy

PS- For those of you dying to know about the 10lb Challenge?  I want to congratulate Brenda (19lb), Rebecca (11lb) and Diana (10lb) for leading the way to a 61lb total loss.  Way to go.  I learned that daily accountability is a very strong motivator and that next time I do this, I need to have a more efficient way to manage everyone’s progress as it was taking 1-2 hours per day to do it like I wanted and I just couldn’t keep it up.  I only lost 3lbs but am not giving up.  Gonna lend $61 to an entrepreneur at www.kiva.org.