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The previous post on “promise” had a straightforward message, “Know what you pledge, vow, and commit to your customers.” The rest of strategy is about figuring out how to keep that promise better than your competition, in a way that you can make money.

Recently, I had the good fortune of attending a keynote by Ken Schmidt. As he described the story of Harley Davidson, I realized that my previous post was boring and “functional” and my message was incomplete.

Can you make a promise that your customer will feel they are “cool” and you can make them look cool when they use your products or services? Can you promise your customers that they will feel fulfilled, and have a reason to love themselves even more?

This is not about promoting narcissism and making the world vain and self centered. It is about connecting with your customers as “people” and at an emotional level.

This sounded really crazy to me until I realized that so few companies do it well, and almost all leaders do it exceptionally well.

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Your first step in defining strategy is to describe the promise you are making to your customer. Of course, we assume you know who your customer is, if you don’t, then describe your customer first.

Examples of promises are:

• If you are a cell phone company, your promise could be that phone calls will be clear and no calls will be dropped.
• If you are a company that makes laptops, your promise could be that the system will never crash, you will never lose your data, and the user experience will be the best that money can buy.
• If you are a job seeker, your promise could be that you will deliver results to grow revenue and improve customer satisfaction, while inspiring your co-workers.

A promise is meaningful is someone will pay you to keep it. The payment could be to cover your costs, or it could be a premium well over the cost of keeping your promise. If no one cares about your promise, then it is meaningless.

You could make many different kinds of promises, the question is, which one are you going to pick and focus on? This choice is the essence of strategy.

(Thanks to Kate for this insight)