Today I watched a snippet of an interview with David Meerman Scott on his blog, Web Ink Now. In the interview, David made up a new acronym: “MSU” – it stands for Making Stuff Up. He points out the lunacy of the behavior of marketers and product managers who sit in their conference rooms with nice cosy Aeron chairs, making up theories about what they think they should do to sell to customers. Instead of spinning theories about how people buy their products, these marketers should get off their behinds and go talk to their buyer personas. It would be transformational – you would learn something new about what people really need.
This resonated deeply with me. I’m a huge believer in getting out of the office and meeting some real buyers and users. If we are inwardly focused, we’ll lose touch with the buyers and users and end up missing the mark. Sadly not everybody shares this view… One of my previous startups had a leadership team that was very inwardly focused. They persisted in Making Stuff Up. Predictably, most of the stuff didn’t work and the product didn’t sell very well. The startup eventually perished.
So don’t get caught in the MSU mentality. Get out of the office and do some interviews today!
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