PART I

The Six Standards of
Strategic Synchronicity

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Lighthouses speak to vigilance.

They speak to caring. They speak

to being there. They speak to

helping other human beings.

Peter Ralston

HOW TO create a “perfect connection” with more customers, and recognize it at the moment it is occurring, is the ultimate goal of the journey on which you are about to embark.

Your first stop on this journey is to acquaint yourself with the six affirming standards for conducting business in the new millennium. Daily practice of these Strategic Synchronicity Standards will lay the foundation for a more prosperous, profitable, productive, and perfect business environment.

It is on this foundation that you will create your own Strategic Attraction Plan, a strategic process that works so quickly—usually within two days—that the results appear almost like coincidental occurrences, or “synchronicities.”

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, “synchronicity” is defined as “the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.”

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Our definition of “Strategic Synchronicity” is different in that we believe it is possible to both design and identify the process that causes the resulting relationship. Through our years of training people at hundreds of entrepreneurial organizations and corporations, as well as nonprofit and governmental organizations, in the Strategic Attraction Planning Process, we have found that it is strategically possible to attract relationships that begin with a high level of connectedness— a powerful spark of Strategic Synchronicity—and that produce the most enriching, satisfying, and prosperous ongoing exchanges of information and energy.

The Lighthouse Test

How can you tell if you and your company are strategically ready to attract only the “most perfect” customers to serve? By using the simple Lighthouse Test.

Imagine a lighthouse standing strong and tall on the rocky shore of a beautiful harbor. The water is calm, the sky is blue, and many boats are out at sea. But off in the distance a storm cloud is forming. It approaches the shore very quickly. The sky is getting darker, the waves are getting rougher, and many of the boats are being tossed about on the water. As the rain and the wind pick up strength, the power of the beam of light emanating from the lighthouse increases. The darker the skies become, the brighter the light shines to provide safety and security in the midst of the storm.

Notice that not all of the boats need this beam of light to guide them to safety. Some have more confident captains and crews, and some are fully equipped to manage through storms safely and effectively. Now imagine that the lighthouse gets upset because some of the boats are choosing to follow their own path. The lighthouse feels that it is not successful if its light is not guiding all of the boats in the sea. It sprouts arms and legs and runs up and down the beach acting like a searchlight, doing its best to catch the attention of all the boat captains, attempting to encourage more of them to depend on its light.

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What do you think would be the result?

Most likely, the boats whose captains were depending on a steady, constant stream of light to guide them safely around potential dangers would be damaged or destroyed in the chaos and confusion. Other boats might be steered dangerously close to shore so those on board could get a better look at the spectacle. Still others would be perfectly content to stay where they are—out at sea, relying on their own navigational equipment. The result: very few boats would be served well or at all by the lighthouse.

Here’s the test.

How often are you, your employees, and your coworkers operating like lighthouses standing securely on the shore, attracting and safely guiding the boats (customers) that need your business with your light? How often do you run up and down the beach frantically looking for boats (customers) to serve?

Perfect Customers Are Most Likely to Find You When You Are Standing Still

It takes a lot of energy to look for people to serve. More than likely you have had the experience of trying to figure out how you could find the greatest number of customers. You spent much time and money experimenting, looking for the right way to catch their attention. Once you caught their attention, you had to convince them that you are the one who has what they want. By the time you actually found someone willing to try what you have to offer, you were exhausted!

So when a customer told you that he was not completely satisfied with your products, your policies, or your pricing, you were more than willing to make compromises to satisfy him. Truth be known, you were just too tired to put up a fight. Thinking that you won the war, you felt you could afford to let him win this smaller skirmish— especially in light of what it would cost you to go out and hunt down another customer to replace this one.

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If you’d had greater confidence and financial resources, you might have been more willing to listen to your tiny inner voice, the one that speaks for your instincts, which said,“Be careful. This one could be more trouble than he’s worth. This customer is not meant for you.”

Instead, you convinced yourself that this customer must be meant for you because he responded to your advertising or clicked on your hyperlink. You were afraid that if you didn’t serve him, the competition would. Of course, your inner voice was right. By the time you ended your tortured relationship with this customer, you knew that no amount of money in the world would be enough to compensate you for the exhausting cost of the experience.

This is the typical end result when you buy into the adversarial marketing school of thought that preaches a gospel of “targeting audiences,” “stealing market share,” and “eliminating the competition.” These “stealth” strategies virtually guarantee that if you do win the battle, you will end up with customers who will be impossible to satisfy because they are not a perfect fit for your company. What you are “winning” with these strategies are another company’s perfect customers.

While it is easy to blame the customer for the poor quality of the interaction, it is important to remember that you are solely responsible for choosing to serve a customer whose needs are not a perfect match for your company.

The lesson to be learned from this type of experience is to listen for and trust your inner voice when you encounter a less-than-perfect customer. It’s warning you that your own distinctive light has gone out or that perhaps you forgot that lighthouses do not wade out into the water looking for boats to serve. Your responsibility is to stand still and keep shining your own distinctive light, to keep polishing the lens to ensure that your light has the power and brilliance to break through the darkness and attract the attention of only perfect customers.

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The following six chapters introduce the six Strategic Synchronicity Standards. These standards provide essential training in how to stand still so that your most perfect customers can come straight to your shore, your door, or your Web site.