February 3, 2022

Comedy vs Combat

Pop quiz:

What does stand up comedy have in common with hand-to-hand combat?

They both have a painfully clear success metric.

With stand-up comedy, you either made them laugh or you didn’t.

With hand-to-hand combat, you either knocked them out or they knocked you out.

It’s not theoretical.

There’s no debate.

There’s no gray area.

You succeeded or you didn’t.

Here’s the thing...

What client success looks like is not inherently obvious.

When it comes to client work, there’s no default success metric that everyone automatically agrees on.

The success metric is different for every client.

So...

If you don’t find out what success looks like for a given client before you start working, you almost certainly can’t succeed.

And if you can’t succeed, you will fall.

And if you fail your clients, you’re not going to be in business for very long.

Start each engagement by defining success.

Yours,

—J

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