The CEO’s Blind Spot
In my decades of working with CEOs across various industries, I’ve witnessed a pattern that never fails to astound me: the most successful leaders aren’t necessarily the smartest, the most experienced, or even the most well-funded. They’re the ones who have mastered something deceptively simple yet profoundly challenging—they think like their customers.
Yet for every CEO who gets this right, there are countless others who fall into what I call the “empathy gap.” They’re so consumed with showcasing their credentials, experience, and how amazing their company is that they’ve completely lost sight of why anyone would actually want to buy from them.
The “Fries With That” Phenomenon
Here’s a reality check that might sting: if you’re listing feature after feature in your marketing, you might as well say, ” And would you like fries with that?” Because you’re offering things without connecting to your customers’ needs or wants.
I see this constantly. CEOs spend precious time and marketing dollars talking about their impressive backgrounds, years of experience, cutting-edge processes, and comprehensive service offerings. They sound fabulous—to themselves—but they’ve left the customer entirely out of the conversation.
It’s this realization that you can never unsee it once you see it. You suddenly recognize that you’re spending all your time talking about yourself, thinking, “Well, why wouldn’t they buy from me? I sound amazing!” But you haven’t connected to the why for the customer or what’s in it for them.
The Warning Signs You’ve Lost Customer Focus
The warning signs are easier to spot than you might think. Listen to your marketing messages, sales conversations, and internal meetings. Are you spending too much time talking about:
- Your company’s credentials and track record
- How amazing your organization is
- Your team’s collective experience
- All the different capabilities you offer
If so, you’ve fallen victim to the “it’s all about us” trap. You’re focused on your brand and talking about how great your company is instead of how wonderful it is for your customer to find a solution.
Whether you call them clients, patients, guests, or customers, the principle remains the same: they don’t care about your resume—they care about their problems.
The Shift That Changes Everything
The most successful CEOs I work with do something fundamentally different. They take time to really understand who their ideal customer is and why they buy. They don’t just think about all the things they offer and how they provide value on the surface level. They think about how they relate to solving their ideal customer’s pain points and the consequences of those pain points.
They’re looking to provide unique solutions to specific needs, rather than starting with their services and hoping someone will want them. They’re seasoned enough to pay very close attention to who their customer is and what drives their behavior.
Here’s the critical insight: your organization’s credentials are understood. People expect that your company will be knowledgeable in your area. Demonstrating that knowledge in valuable ways—things that directly help them—illustrates your team’s expertise far more than any list of company achievements ever could.
Instead of discussing their company’s qualifications, successful CEOs focus on speaking directly to individuals about their specific situations and how their organization can help them transform, solve a problem, or meet a need.
The “Why” That Unlocks Everything
The practical tool that makes this shift possible is surprisingly simple: ask “why.” When you catch yourself listing a feature of what you do, ask yourself, “Why does that matter to my customer? What does that do for them?”
As you continue to peel back the layers with this question, you get to the heart of the real benefit—that unique solution that solves their pain point and eliminates the consequences they’re facing.
This is about getting to the heart of why your customer buys. What’s important to them? How can you solve their problems and answer their why?
The Million-Dollar Mistake
But here’s where even well-intentioned CEOs stumble. They think they must offer massive value by providing everything they can. They believe their customers’ “why” is about whether they provide enough value to justify their price.
They don’t realize that the customer may not need the 15 things they do. They need the solution to the one thing that will make a difference, and they will pay for that. They couldn’t care less about the other 14.
This happens because most CEOs don’t take the time to truly understand the why. They deal at the surface level instead of digging deeper. They don’t think about the individual person or business that’s buying their service or product and what their motivation is for needing it. They’re just offering something without getting to the root of it.
The Transformation
When CEOs make this shift, everything changes— from talking about their organization to understanding their customers. They stop focusing on “How will we make our company sound really good? How will we make it sound like we’re giving enough value to charge the price we want to charge?”
Instead, they realize that customers will pay the price if it meets their needs. When you directly link to the need you’re solving, the pain point you’re fixing, and the transformation you’re enabling, all those other concerns fall into place.
But here’s how to make that transition practical and effective. Start asking yourself these three critical questions for every service, product, or capability you offer:
What need does this solve for them? Don’t just think about what you do—think about what problem disappears when your customer works with you. What keeps them up at night that you can fix?
Why is that important to them? Dig deeper into the consequences of their problem. What happens if they don’t solve this? How does fixing it change their business, life, and peace of mind?
How can we communicate that effectively to cut through the clutter in the market? Once you understand their real need and why it matters, craft your message around that transformation, not your capabilities. Speak directly to that pain point in language they use, not industry jargon.
These questions help you move from company-centric messaging to customer-centric solutions that actually break through the noise.
The Competitive Advantage
This is why CEOs who think like customers win in 2025. In a world where everyone is shouting about their credentials and comprehensive offerings, the leader who speaks directly to the customer’s specific pain point cuts through all the noise.
When you fall short of this customer-centric approach or misstep from it, you start to see a decline in business or stagnant growth and plateauing. But when you get it right, when you truly understand who you’re dealing with and focus on solving their real problems rather than making yourself sound good, that’s when you create the kind of customer connection that drives sustainable growth.
The empathy gap isn’t just a marketing problem—it’s a competitive disadvantage. In 2025, the CEOs who bridge that gap will be the ones who thrive.
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