We have talked a lot about why you do what you
do. But we haven't really talked much about what
is that you do. So I would love your journey
from being an author of Aligning the Dots to
the Blue Dot Partners, your company. I would
love the story. How did that come about? Being
working at Apple and then going, starting your
own firm, I can't imagine. I think it's probably
a hard thing to do, leaving corporate and doing
all that. So how did it all start? Yeah, I mean,
first of all, thank you for being on your show
again. I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I like the
transformation of idea to a business where people
buy something and enjoy it, hopefully. And, you
know, I've been in Silicon Valley for 35 years.
I arrived on January 4th, 1990. And I have been
on 23 boards. I've been investing in companies.
I've been sometimes successful, many times failed.
But I've always struggled with a very simple
question, which is what do I need to do on Monday
morning at 8 o 'clock to grow my business? And
I think that top -line revenue growth is the
most vexing and difficult challenge. that every
CEO and every entrepreneur and every business
leader is facing. And I was not happy with the
way people were trying to solve that problem,
which is typically kind of a knee -jerk reaction.
You know, well, let's just have more salespeople.
Let's just discount our product. You know, let's
just build yet another feature that our competition
has. I mean, while all those may sound like good
idea, they rarely work because they are based
on They are not based on data analysis. They
are not based on a deep understanding of why
is the company fundamentally not growing. And
so that's how I came up with this idea of alignment.
And it's really the alignment between the business
and its target market that matters. And that's
the engine of growth. And just like a mechanical
watch, if the gears are misaligned, the watch
may still be working and ticking, but eventually...
you will slow down and eventually will stop ticking
and so if you misalign your business with your
target market then you will slow down and you
will eventually become irrelevant and the business
may actually shut down so it's all about alignment
that's really the the secret and that's the only
way to grow a business you know compared to your
market in which you operate um tell me more about
that um for people who are uh not as understanding
of these terms people who are listening to it
i would love more thoughts on on what exactly
do you mean by alignment with them yeah it's
a great question so the next step was i i realized
that they are and that was a big discovery for
me by the way but i realized that there are four
universal axis of alignment and they apply to
literally any business so you can take a small
coffee place in paris you can take a medium -sized
company in miami or start up here in silicon
valley or large corporation those four principles
of alignment are exactly the same they are truly
universal so the first one is that the pain of
the customer and the claim that the business
makes to address that pain have to be aligned
so if you come to me harry with a headache and
i show you a stomach api you can say wait a minute
you know i've got a headache not a stomach api
So your pen and my claim are not aligned, you
will never buy my pill, and nor should you buy
my pill. The second axis of alignment is the
way the claim is expressed, which is the messaging,
and the way the claim is understood, which is
the perception. Those two things must be aligned.
So if I have the right pill for your headache,
and I tell you in French, you know, voilà le
médicament qu 'il te faut et qui soulagera ton
mal de tête en 10 minutes. Well, if you don't
speak French, you're like, what the heck did
I just say? And you will not understand my claim
because I am not speaking your language and you
will never buy the pill, even though it would
be the perfect pill for your headache. So that's
the second axis. The third one is the way customers
want to buy and the way the product is sold in
the marketplace have to be aligned. So if I say,
Harry, I have your pill, you have to fly here
to the Bay Area to pick it up. You're like, well,
wait a minute, the pharmacy is just down the
street from where I live. Why can't I just go
there and walk? pick up the medicine. And then
the fourth axis of alignment is actually my favorite
one. And I did steal it out of the Apple playbook.
I realized that there is one and only one business
on this planet. I realized that everybody is
in the exact same unique business. And that unique
business is the manufacturing and delivery of
delight. That's the business everybody is in,
whether you like it or not. and so the la the
fourth axis of alignment is the alignment between
the expected delight and the offering in other
words what's actually delivered to that customer
whether it's a product or service and those two
things must be aligned they cannot be an impedance
mismatch between oh i expected that and then
i realized as i consume the product that it's
different so if you get the peel and then your
headache is worse and you get dizzy then obviously
that's not what you expected and you're not going
to buy the product more, you're not going to
advise other people to buy the product. So the
four universal axes of alignment is that the
pain of the customer and the claim that the business
makes have to be aligned, that the perception,
which is how the claim is understood, and the
messaging, which is how the claim is expressed
by the business, have to be aligned, and then
the way the customers want to buy the product
or the service and the way that product or service
is sold in the marketplace. have to be aligned.
And then finally, that what is delivered to the
customer and the expected delight have to be
aligned. And if you perfectly align your business
along those four axes, then you will realize
the maximum growth rate possible within your
target market. Wow, that's awesome. I'm glad
you said those terms, maximum growth rate possible
within your target market. Let's talk about all
these in depth, I think, from pain to perception
to perspective to... delight into delivery. I
want to know more depth on that. How can people
or entrepreneurs or leaders apply that practically
on any level? Well, the first thing they need
to do is they need to define what those are,
right? So let's take the pain and the claim,
for example, just to double click on this. I
used to ask entrepreneurs and CEOs when I met
them at a party, let's say, what does your company
do? And then what I realized is very quickly,
they dive into a lot of details of what the company
does and the product. And they're like, well,
let me stop you. I am not going to buy your,
you know, 10 gigabit Ethernet switch for security.
It's like, I'm not your prospect. So I decided
to now, I never asked that question again. The
question I asked is, well, just tell me in one
sentence, don't tell me what you do, but tell
me in one sentence, why should I buy your product?
And it's a very difficult. questions sometimes
for them to answer which tells me that they haven't
really aligned the pain and the claim they don't
know what the pain is and they don't know what
that claim is and therefore they describe me
they describe to me the what they do maybe how
they do it but they're not telling me the why
i should buy um the messaging and the perception
is very similar sometimes they express something
to you and then you go on the website and you're
like well is this even the same company it's
completely disconnected between what the ceo
told me and what i read uh sometimes they don't
use the language of their prospects sometimes
they use lingo that we are so proud of in silicon
valley you know it's like what does that mean
i don't understand and then the next one is purchase
versus sale what friction is introduced through
that process you know why are you making me go
through hoops to buy your product once i decided
i want to acquire it you know why do i have um
why does those terms and conditions in your agreement
i don't want them you know if i'm the procurement
of a of a government buying a product i'm buying
in a very particular way because that's the rule
like you have to comply and then the last one
is the misalignment between the expected delight
and what is delivered and the interesting thing
is it's a lot easier to control the expected
delight than it is to change your product so
ask yourself is like what delight should my customers
expect and how do i communicate that to them
very clearly And so that when actually they use
the product, that expectation is fully met. And
a lot of companies fail to define what the expected
daylight should be. And because of that, then
there's a misalignment and then they're not growing
as fast as they can. What was the alignment in
all four of these steps for you and Blue Dot
Partners? So Blue Dot is very simple. The pain
is that... I am not growing as fast as I would
like. And there's many consequences of that.
And consequently, you know, my board isn't happy.
My employees are not happy. My investors are
not happy. I'm not creating shareholder value.
I'm losing market share. So this is a real consequence
of that pain. And the claim we make is that we'll
help you grow faster. And very simple. It's fully
aligned. The way we message this is that we help
you grow faster. And we do that in a unique way.
We're very different from a lot of other consulting
companies or management consulting companies
because we have this unique data -driven approach
of four alignments and we measure those alignments
and so forth. When they want to buy from us,
it's very easy. We have a standard consulting
agreement. There's nothing tricky about it. And
then we want to delight them. So when we deliver
the growth playbook, which is really the product
that they buy from us, it's a very detailed operating
plan. that tells them what to do on monday morning
at eight o 'clock to grow they're always surprised
because it's very data driven a lot of analysis
and it's a very prescriptive playbook and they
know exactly what to do and and that's how we
maximize that alignment between the expected
delight and what we actually deliver and of course
it works because not because we're smart but
because it's common sense if you start to align
you're going to start to grow and people will
buy customers will buy more so that's how we
realize those four alignments quite simple in
many ways What would you say that some of the
things and challenges that you went through while
starting Blue Dots and scaling Blue Dots? A lot
of times people come on my show and they don't
like to talk about the bad. At Vision Pros Live,
I think we get excited about the good, bad, and
the ugly, where entrepreneurs can see, hey, This
is exactly what the leader went through to get
to this level. It's not all hunky -dory. It's
not all amazing. I love your thoughts on that.
Yeah, that's a good question. I think the biggest
challenge for us is to recruit the right partners.
And to us, the right partner is somebody who
has been a real CEO before. Because it's very
hard to give parenting advice and to lecture
somebody about parenting. when you never had
any kids, right? If you don't know how to change
a diaper and getting up in the middle of the
night and then shuffling your kid to the baseball,
you know, practice and, you know, three times
a week and then dealing with the teenager years,
you know, where they don't want to talk to you
and so on and so forth. I think it's really hard.
And so we have a principle which is if you want
to be a partner at Boudot, you must have been
a real CEO of a real business before. But then
at the same time, you must be good at management
consulting. So if you take a pure CEO who loves
to drive and have team and give orders, who's
never done management consulting, that doesn't
work for us. And then conversely, if we take
somebody from Bain or McKinsey or BCG, who spent
their whole life consulting, well, they've never
been a CEO. They don't know what it means. And
so our biggest challenge is to find the right
people who can really get involved with our clients.
and really have a high level of empathy and at
the same time a disciplined approach to management
consulting and that's really hard and that's
the reason we are not growing as fast as we could
now i don't have to grow we don't have to grow
because we never raised any money we don't have
a board we don't have investors i only have one
boss with my wife and i don't have to worry about
anything else but companies will raise money
or have a board they have to grow they have no
choice and so they are subject to that law which
will not awesome oh sorry one more thing i want
to add i think when you talk about growth there's
a really important concept which is to grow responsibly
like what how can a company reasonably grow within
a market that has his own growth rate and rhythm
and i always i always say you know growing a
business is like drinking wine you have to do
it responsibly um and part of the issue we have
in silicon valley is we tend to put a lot of
money into companies and like well you need to
grow at 100 a year for 10 years it's like i just
gave you 40 million dollars how come you're not
growing and we're forcing a growth that is sometimes
unhealthy and that is just not the right rhythm
for the company and then we're actually destroying
value instead of creating value so how can how
can a company an entrepreneur or leader avoid
that They have to avoid that by understanding
the growth rate of the business they're in, how
much is my market growing at, and then how much
more growth can I reasonably deliver. So, for
example, if you're in a market that's growing
at 15 % a year, you're not going to go and grow
at 150 % a year, right? So you want to beat the
market for sure, but if you grow at 22%, 25%,
then I think that's a reasonable growth rate.
And sometimes you don't, if your market is decreasing
and at minus 30 % a year, if you are negatively
growing at minus 5%, you're actually gaining
market share. That's actually a good thing. And
you may become a leader in a whole market that's
going down, but because you're taking one more
market share, then you're going to become a leader
and you're actually creating value as well. So
it's really in relation to the growth of the
market in which you operate. That's what's important.
Yes. what would you say, what books or resources
would you recommend? Well, I mean, of course,
you know, of course, the only book they need
to read is Aligning the Dots, right? But, you
know, I actually, it's interesting. I wrote a
business book, but I actually do not read a lot
of business books. And the reason is that a lot
of business books have a lot of pages and there's
only maybe five pages that are really teaching
me something. so in fact when in the book i have
a section that says how to read this book and
i say how much time do you have you know one
minute three minutes ten minutes or half an hour
or forever and then i actually tell them what
to read depending on the time that the reader
has and so i think you know i think my advice
is you know read a few books when you very quickly
are connecting to the books if you are interested
in and you're learning and keep reading if you
don't feel that connection very quickly just
don't read the book Instead, meet other CEOs,
investors, and board members. I think that can
also bring a lot of light to your learning experience
and to growing and becoming a better entrepreneur
or a better business leader. Awesome. Thank you
for sharing that. My question, there's still
one unanswered question from our talk, is how
did you become an author? I understand what problem
you were trying to solve, but why the book? Well,
I think it's a great question. I think, and I
advise a lot of people who come to me and say,
well, I want to write a book. What advice do
you have? And I always give the same answer.
I said, the best advice I can give you is really
ask yourself fundamentally, why do you want to
write a book? If the answer is, well, I want
to make millions of dollars because I'm going
to sell 50 million copies. typically tell them
well forget it that's just not the way it works
now you may be lucky and you may be exceptional
but that suddenly wasn't me um if they say well
i want to flatter my ego and just say i'm i'm
another then okay i mean i think that's that's
not an invalid answer but it's like i don't think
that's gonna really fulfill their dreams the
reason i wrote the book is because We have this
very unique approach to solving a very difficult
problem, which is the problem of growth. And
we do it through those four axes of alignment
and measurement and data. And I wanted to tell
that story. I've been on 23 boards. I didn't
want people to struggle with, well, we don't
really understand why we're not growing. Now
they know it's because they are misaligned and
by reading the book and by diving into how we
do things They know exactly what they are misaligned
and they can start to correct those misalignments
So I wrote the book I get the TED talk because
I wanted to evangelize this idea I wanted to
share this concept and hopefully people will
use it and start to think about their business
differently And if they do, then that was my
definition of success in terms of writing a book.
It's not how many copies I sold because I don't
really care. And I give a lot of free copies
to people and just say, hey, you know, if you
can't sleep at night, take my book and read it
and that will help you. And, you know, and hopefully
people will find, you know, one or two things
in the book that is like, oh, now I have a new
idea, I have a new concept and now I understand.
And if they do that, then I'm thrilled and I'm
very, very happy. Thank you for sharing that.
One last question for you, Philippe, before we
end today's segment. What held you back during
your career? I think it's lack of confidence
at the beginning of my career. You know, fear.
I think fear is a big factor in holding people
up. And I was very... successful in working with
Steve Jobs directly because I had no fear. And
I told him many times, I said, Steve, this is
my idea. This is what I think. Here is the reason.
And you may think I'm the stupidest guy on the
planet. Doesn't affect me. I don't really care.
And you can fire me this afternoon. I don't really
care because I'm sure I'll find something else
somewhere. It's like I'm not worried about that.
And that created a very healthy relationship
where he knew that I would not, you know, try
to kiss his feet or please him or flatter his
ego. You know, and many times he didn't like
my ideas and he thought it was stupid and that
was fine. It's like, I'm okay with that. And
many times he thought it was stupid and then
three weeks later he would actually implement
them and do it, which is fine as well. So I think,
you know, I think it's what holds people is fear
of understanding who they are truly, pretending
to be somebody they are not. I think that's a
big problem. And also fear of building relationships
and connections. without having to ask for anything.
Just authentic, healthy relationship where you
start the dialogue by, how can I help you? Is
there anything I can do to help you? As opposed
to buy my product and pay me quickly. And if
people don't understand that, this is the advice
I give to young people, build your network, an
authentic network. I have relationships with
people that I've had for 35 years since I came
here. And that has always been paying big dividends
for me and always helped me. So don't hesitate
to engage with people you don't know. Listen
to their story. Everybody has a story. It's always
interesting, at least to me. It's like, well,
what's your background? Where were you born?
And which country do you come from? And why did
you start this company? The kinds of questions
you're asking. I think that's really important.
And to listen to the story and travel and, you
know, look at the world and everything is different
from the way you think. And that's how you get
better. And that's how you learn. Thank you for
being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned
in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to
seeing your reactions as these episodes continue
to move forward. This is going to get more and
more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.