You aren’t your customer.

Perhaps you use the product or service you sell and are passionate about it; but you are not the customer. Once you accept that truth, you have the ability to ask different questions.

For instance, when you allow yourself to take a step back you can ask what motivates people in your market to buy (or not buy). You can ask and understand how you are truly viewed in the marketplace.

I will never forget sitting in a business strategy meeting years ago and watching (with sullen amazement while still not surprised) to the C-Suite blithely ignore incontrovertible evidence of the public’s negative view of us and our product. I knew the truth because I listened to the customers. But despite the evidence, they refused to hear it.

Don’t be so in love with your expertise that you fail to listen to the people who pay the bills.