Not What You Expected

This morning I bit into a bagel with tomato and cream cheese. The problem was that the tomato wasn’t a tomato, it was a smoked salmon. I almost gagged to death.

It’s not that I don’t like smoked salmon (I actually love it), it’s that I wasn’t expecting it. Our brains are wired to anticipate certain sensations and experiences when we do something, and when our expectations aren’t met, their is an initial jolt. An immediate discomfort. It may only be temporary or it may last forever. But either way, jolting your customers is not a good idea.

When you deliver your product or service (or bagel), make sure you have met your customers expectations. If you don’t, you have set them up to be jolted.


Comments

3 thoughts on “Not What You Expected”

  1. Thats interesting from different perspectives. I think I can attribute many missed opportunities to this tomato / smoked salmon idea. When I see a tomato – I expect a tomato too – and not a salmon. And thats the problem… Because I miss the salmon… which turns out to be big success (in other words). For example in 2009 I saw a tomato (Bitcoins) and after studying it for a while I dismissed it because it tasted like a salmon (the price for 1 BTC was 0.0007 USD which seemed to be a time waster). Fast forward 4 years…. and 1 BTC rises to 1000 USD. I wanted to buy a tomato – and I’ve experienced that this tomato was really a salmon – so I dismissed it – and what turns out -> this salmon got waaaaay more valuable than tons of tomatoes. And I had more experiences like this. Also – good experiences – and every good experience I had – was when I expected a tomato and… got a salmon – and kept it. And thats what I do now -> I look out for salmons that look like tomatoes. They are gold.

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