What does marketing dog food have to do with building products, success and happiness? Everything, it turns out.
When Paul Iams launched Iams 999 – a high quality, high protein variety of dog food – he didn’t have a distribution system. So, he needed customers who were willing to go through a lot of trouble to get this shipped over.
It turns out there was just this right group – owners of show dogs. These folks loved what was great about Iams (better health + shiny coats) and didn’t mind, or even liked, what was bad about it (hard to get => competitive advantage).
We are all not different from Paul Iams. When we seek partners, customers, and managers, we strike gold when we find folks who love what’s good about us and don’t mind what’s bad about us.
As these relationships start with appreciation of our strengths, these managers, partners, users, and team members give us the most useful feedback, push us to become better, and also give us air cover and support when we inevitably screw up. We all need that appreciation, push, and support to ship our best work.
And, making the effort to find our segment makes all the difference in the world.
