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Avoid These 4 Realities at Your Own Peril

know there are some who object to references to customers and products and marketing…but some things are made so clear by shifting the vocabulary from church to business.

Alan Kay, the computer scientist, said “Point of view is worth 80 IQ points.” His famous quote is also recorded as “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.” Either way, he’s pointing out that acquiring a different perspective or point of view can make us a lot smarter.

For example, here are 4 realities that Peter Drucker identified in Managing for Results. See if these add up for you and actually provide a helpful new perspective about the design of connecting strategies for unconnected people:

1. “What the people in the business think they know about customer and market is more likely to be wrong than right.” Can you see the truth in Drucker’s thinking? Can you see how it might apply to our work in designing strategies to connect unconnected people and make disciples? See also, Design Your Connecting Strategy with Unconnected People in Mind.

2. “The customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him.” The obvious question is, what do we think we are providing for unconnected people and are we providing what they actually value? See also, The Engel Scale and the Need for Customized Next Steps.

3. “An important corollary is that what the producer or supplier thinks the most important feature of a product to be may well be relatively unimportant to the customer.” Again, what if an active conversation with unconnected people revealed that they don’t actually value what we think is something they ought to value? See also, 5 Things You Need to Know about Connecting Unconnected People.

4. “The customers have to be assumed to be rational.  But their rationality is not necessarily that of the manufacturer; it is their own rationality.” How many times have we said, “If people just knew what was good for them they’d sign up for a small group!” What if we simply embraced the idea that our customers have their own rationality and the sooner we learn what it is the sooner we’ll begin to design connecting strategies that appeal to unconnected people. See also, Design Your Small Group Ministry for Results.

See also, Clue #1 When Designing Your Small Group Ministry.