Published Feb. 24, 2025
As people, we are wired to jump out of bed each morning into a virtual hula hoop we wear throughout our day. The hoop defines where we place our primary attention. Indeed, our natural bent is to wear the hoop ourselves and focus on our own perspectives.
Wearing the hula hoop, we walk around daily, focusing on our needs, interpretations, and perspectives. For entrepreneurs, this is a death sentence. Rarely are we insightful in understanding our customers’ needs and desire for a solution when wearing the hoop.
This leads to the “if you build it, they will come” mentality. We get an idea and think it must be the thing that people need. We bear the cost of building it and are surprised when people do not beat down the doors for it. Ultimately, we solved a problem from our perspective, not the customer’s.
I have learned that the mindset of entrepreneurship encourages me to recognize the fallacy of the preeminence of self-perspective. I must remove the hula hoop from myself.
With the hoop off me, and placed on someone else, the hula hoop becomes a powerful tool — the Entrepreneurial Hula Hoop. When the hoop is placed on others, it allows me to hear their problems, opinions, and desires — from THEIR perspective — as well as see their behavior and habits accurately. Listening and observing provide critical insight to understand problems from the customer’s perspective and what a solution needs to look like. This is challenging; we often want to place the hoop back on ourselves before truly hearing or processing what we see, hear, or experience from others. It is very easy to clutter customer insight with our own biases.
But when I commit to listening, observing, and empathetically approaching others, I gain insight that sets me apart from peers and competitors. When you truly hear from customers, their voices actively mold your business’s product, messaging, and business model to fit them.
The Entrepreneurial Hula Hoop allows me to define a customer-centric value proposition. The value proposition is the bridge between you as an entrepreneur and your customer. It communicates to the customer the unparalleled value and benefit you bring them in their voice… not yours.
Using the Entrepreneurial Hula Hoop, I can build effective value propositions — moving from merely solving the problem to delivering “superior delight” in the form of a complete solution that is so satisfying that customers do not consider the competition due to the excellence and differentiated experience. The Hula Hoop provides the deep insight needed to position my product or service in a differentiated manner — highlighting the “better than my competition” properties that exceed the customer’s expectations.
Where is your hula hoop? Are you wearing it yourself? Or are you actively putting it on others as the Entrepreneurial Hula Hoop?
Learn More
Watch our video on positioning value.
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