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If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes! – Podcast Transcript

By December 20, 2023No Comments

If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes! - Alan Berg, CSPIf you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes!

This is another listener suggestion, this time from Cedric on Facebook. I don’t know if he used this phrase, or if it was my interpretation. The analogy comes from visualizing a dog sled team. Imagine a sled being pulled by 5 dogs. One in front, and two pairs of two other dogs behind it. If you’re the lead dog, you have a clear view of where you’re going. If you’re one of the other dogs, you have a view of the rear end of the dog in front of you. Are you leading and innovating? Or, are you watching others do it.

Listen to this new 7-minute episode for some ideas on how you can act like the lead dog in your market and category.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com

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– If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes. Listen to this episode. Find out where I’m going with this. 

Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. Here’s another listener suggestion, this time for my friend, Cedric. And I’m not sure if it was exactly this wording or something that came up that implied this. So the phrase, “If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes,” comes from a kind of a metaphor or an analogy, forget which one it is. Imagine the sled dog races, where you have all these dogs pulling the sled. Well, the front dog has a view of where you’re going and the other dogs have a view of the hind end of the dog in front of it. And that view never changes. 

So that’s where that phrase comes from. And how does this apply to you and what you do? Very simply, are you innovating? Are you trying new things? Are you the one that’s being the one to try things that other people aren’t doing? Or try things that you’ve seen other people doing but maybe not in your market, right? Or are you just following what other people are doing, therefore the view never changes there, and you know, just being complacent that what you’re doing is enough? Because markets change. Trends change. People change. Generations change. If you’ve been in the industry for a while, you probably started doing business with I’m going to guess Gen-Xers, maybe some of you Baby Boomers, right, and then Gen Y, the Millennials, and then Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha, right? 

So things change. The way people buy changes. What they’re looking for at their events changes. Some things will be constant but the constant within that still has changed. For instance, the concept of personalization for weddings has been going on now for a long time, right, certainly well over a decade if not more. But how they want to personalize their weddings or events, ’cause this applies to corporate and mitzvahs and quinces and other things as well, that’s going to change. 

So are you the one that’s innovating and showing them? If you listen to another episode that I did and it’s also a chapter in my latest book, “Stop Selling and Help Them Buy Weddings & Events”, that people can’t ask for what they don’t know exists. So when they come to you and they’re asking for results that they know exist, are you the one that’s presenting ’em with ideas that they’ve never seen, never heard of because you are the innovator, because you are doing things differently? Now, truth be told, not everybody wants different. 

It kind of like whatever the most popular color of the year is, I know the Pantone color of the year, whatever it is that year, or the most popular first dance song. And you might have seen this dozens and dozens of times and you don’t want to hear Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” again but this couple, at their wedding, they’re going to hear it and their guests are going to hear it and they’re not going to hear how many other weddings it was done for. And when they watch their video and they see them dancing to that song, that’s what’s going to matter to them.

 So some people want what’s popular. Some people want something that a lot of other people are having. But because you’re seeing that view but they’re not, to them it’s unique, to them it’s special. You can present them with other ideas and be that innovator. Not everybody’s going to go for it. Some people want tried and true. Some other people want what nobody has ever seen before. So if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes. 

What are you doing to be the lead dog? What are you doing to be the one that people come to or refer because they say, “Oh, if you want something different, “you want to go to them.” One of my favorite testimonials that somebody wrote about me is something to the effect of that I’m always coming up with new content. Well, I have to do that. I’ve done over 200 podcasts. I have to come up with new content. I’ve written seven books that are in 10 different editions ’cause “Shut Up and Sell More” is in four different editions. I have to come up with new content. I don’t use AI for creating my content because AI uses content that exists to create what it does. If I’m creating new content, ChatGPT and the others don’t have that yet and they won’t have it for a while or may never have it if it’s not in the public domain. 

So what can you do just like what I have to do to push myself to say, “What’s different, what’s new?” And personally, I just like to challenge myself. I don’t want to be doing the same thing again and again. Every time I give a speech, even if it’s a speech I’ve given before, what can I do to make it better? What can I do to innovate within that? What story can I tell? What did I learn from the last time I did this that I can make it different and better this time? It’s another podcast that I did. I believe it’s coming out after this one. I don’t want to be the best I can ever be. I want to be the best I’ve ever been. So look for that episode coming out probably in a few weeks. 

So what can you do to be the innovator? Well, social media is a great place for that because it might be done somewhere else or be being done, right? That would be more appropriate. It might be being done in another market, in another country, in another industry that you can adapt to our industry. I always have my eyes open as a consumer for ideas that I can help you with that I’ve seen outside our industry ’cause sometimes the best ideas are from outside the industry that get adapted into it. I see people who make decor and it’s just amazing that they take stuff that, you know, for me it’s like walking through Home Depot and you’re pulling stuff off the shelves and next thing you know you have this amazing thing that is now a piece of decor. 

So you know, that’s a mindset, that’s a brain that’s just looking and saying, “Okay, this is not what it was intended for “but I can use it for this.” And I think you can come up with those things as well. Now, I’m not saying it’s not good to do what you do really well but after a while, that can get boring and boring means complacency. And complacency means you’re not giving it your best. So I think part of that coming up with the new ideas. And that doesn’t mean buying a lot of new equipment. That’s fine but that doesn’t mean necessarily that. It’s what can you do differently to show your couples, your clients, your corporate clients, your social clients, that you are the one that’s innovating. 

And again, I’ve mentioned this before, there’s a book called “The Challenger Sale” by Matthew Dixon and some other people, “The Challenger Sale”, where you’re challenging people on what they’re asking you for with ideas and results that they didn’t ask for because they can’t. And that was what kind of inspired me to that whole people can’t ask for what they don’t know exists. So be the innovator. Be the lead dog. Be the one that’s out there because if you’re looking at your competitors in the rear view mirror, it’s them that are trying to play catch-up to you. Thanks for listening.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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