The Mirror Test
Four questions will tell you if you're in the Product Trap. The book prints them; this page holds your answer next to what your best customer would say, because the gap between those two lists is where the rock is.
Answer these about yourself. Slowly. Out loud, if you can stand it. Then ask your best customer the same ones and put their words in the second column.
There is no score here, and there shouldn't be. The gap between the two columns is where your rock is sitting: and only you can see it.
What do you say you do, and what does your best customer say you do?
If the two answers don’t match, you’ve found something. You describe the product. They describe what they sailed into your harbor for.
Tom fails this one →
Ask Tom what he does and he says, “I install and service HVAC systems.” Ask one of his customers and you get something else entirely.
The rock isn’t his skill. It’s the sentence he uses to describe it.
What did you build to win that you now have to work around?
Your best product, process, or machine: the thing you’re proudest of. Is the business bending its decisions to keep it fed?
Rosa fails this one →
The answer is sitting on her shop floor, humming: the CNC table and the press brakes she was right to buy. They are genuinely excellent.
That’s the Success Trap wearing work boots. Her best decision became the boundary of her attention.
Which of your best decisions from five years ago have you never revisited?
The system you invested in. The staffing model that worked at your old scale. The strategy that made sense for the business you were then.
Marcus fails this one →
Five years ago he decided to stay small enough to know every customer and every crew member by name. It was the right call, and it built a real business.
A decision that was right when you made it does not stay right by itself.
If you were starting today, what part of how you work would you not rebuild?
Not what you sell: how it gets made, sold and delivered. Anything you’d keep only because it’s already there is a rock.
Answer at least one and I’ll read the two columns back to you.
There is no signup here. Your answers are kept in your Chart Room under an anonymous ship's number, and on this device. If you would rather do this on paper, the four questions are printed in full in Chapter 6.
This tool comes from the book. Get The Vibe Entrepreneur →