Being All Things To All People
May 29th, 2013 // 12:44 pm @ Scott Manning
First, a little shout out to my brother Ryan, partner in success and business, for a killer article written last week. It was, and I told him, one of the best articles I’ve read with very specific things to go and do, more than most people put in a paid seminar.
Now, to this week, I’d like to remind you about a saying that I know you’ve heard:
“You can please all of the people some of the time and you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”
And, it’s wrong, because you can’t even please all of the people some of the time, not a chance. The bigger issue though, that will corrupt your business and success mindset and your focus, is trying to please people – period.
Listen up, you’ll never hear anyone tell you straight about this whole “people pleasing” thing, at least usually they all tell you what they think will be popular, I’ll tell you what’s true. As long as you are living your life around trying to please people you will be desperately unhappy, frustrated, and lost in a maze of confusion around what your real purpose is.
I have long ago recommended the book, The Four Agreements – that I stand behind as the most influential book I’ve ever read. That explains why this doesn’t work…so I’m not going to here, I am going to say that the problem with people pleasing is that what pleases them doesn’t usually and won’t always satisfy what you are trying to achieve, what your life is about, etc.
Now, family, spouse, children, etc you can be the judge there, but even still, if you are the leader then you should know what’s best, and what pleases them isn’t always…obviously.
I am a big “relationship” person who believe that is the most valuable thing in life, with customers, with family, with those people you serve, however it is not what makes you, you have to make yourself, stand for something as the old song goes, or fall for anything, otherwise known as being a servant to everyone but yourself.
The marketing lesson here is simple, ALL PEOPLE and ALL CUSTOMER and ALL RELATIONSHIPS and ALL OPPORTUNITIES in your life are not created equal, cannot and should not be pleases, pursued, made happy – not a chance.
I believe in high quality relationships and the first and most important thing about that is you have to give value to those relationships – show me a person with too many relationships and trying to balance them all out is no different than someone splitting their love and attention between people and expecting all of them to feel well served, do it the wrong way as I’ve learned the hard way with “significant others” or do it with your children and you will know that you’ll never get it perfect.
That is why in business and in your personal life you must establish a focus, a priority, a hierarchy of people and the relationships and pursuits you choose and then do right by them and they should always be made up of what best serves your own personal agenda.
You have to put your agenda, your well-being, your business and the goal and objective of that business first, if you provide value your customers are happy, if you give sufficient customer service they are happy, but you can never forget the purpose of your business – to make a profit, to fuel your wealth and personal ambitions.
Mr. Wonderful on the Shark Tank (Kevin O Leary) is always right when he says its all about the money – in business it is about relationships, but you keep score with the money. In your personal life it isn’t all about the money and that’s why you have to take care of your relationship, but you can’t serve more than one master and be congruent and have integrity.
Serve yourself first. Then you will find everything else falls into place.
Look, you can take this too literally and some will, or you can understand the principle and the concept of it all and apply it to your life…you can’t argue with it because I guarantee the things that drive you crazy, the things that distract you, take away your focus, make you less productive, steal your profits, and leaving you wondering why things aren’t happening more, better, faster is directly related to too many people taking too much away from you – because you let them!!!
Remember, you’ll never please all the people, will only please some of the people, so pick carefully which “some” those are and make sure that you are the top on the list.
In your business, please the best customers, go for what makes you the best, builds your business most successfully, serve those objectives and remember that a business NOT-in-business serves no people, not successful, not profitable, is worthless to you, those you care about and the customers you had or are yet to get.
Don’t be a people pleaser be a focused-on-what-drives-you-to-
On this earth, your master is yourself, if you’re not confident enough in that, get guidance (from someone like me) or get out of business and go find someone else to please you…otherwise you are the person completely responsible for your success, happiness, income, and all other things – if you’re not pleasing you, you won’t be pleasing anyone else around you for very long anyhow.
Category : Blog
