Who is it for?

With any project or product or campaign, one question you HAVE to get right is “Who is it for?”

Who is the customer you are trying to make happy? I can’t tell you how many great ideas fail, or worse, never launch in the first place because someone either a) lost sight of who the customer is, or b) never decided in the first place.

Once you know who it’s for, it gets a lot easier to make decisions and protect the project from people whose opinions don’t matter.

Quick story:

I was with a musician friend of mine while he was on tour. Before his show he was thinking about cutting a song out of his set.  It was one the fans in this market(Charlotte) loved. He said he was tired of playing it and didn’t really like it all that much because it was an old song which came out before he had really matured as a writer. I told him don’t do that. These people love that song. Your customer tonight is the people packed in front of the stage. They are the ones who will buy your merch, sign up for your mailing list and tell their friends on Facebook tonight to go to your show tomorrow.

He was not the customer. His manager was not the customer. The fans were the customer.

This isn’t always an obvious answer because most of the time you’re not dealing with law. You are trying to find the right taste. It’s subjective and completely skewed for the emotions of one audience.

Remember this next time the secretary says she doesn’t like the color of that logo or the sales person thinks the software doesn’t have enough features. Ask, “Is this for them?” If it isn’t, keep on keeping on.

Who are you trying to delight?