What’s your alibi?

The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille has more than a few wow moments, but the one that astonished me the most is the presence of an alibi with the code. Alibi is the necessary element that adds power to the code. It’s the rational reasoning behind what a person does.

Run down the memory lanes, and you will find every significant decision you made had an alibi behind it. You spend hours shopping but do not buy anything because you need an alibi to continue shopping. You buy a luxury car because you have alibi in form of comfort and well, luxury. You checkout from time-to-time in search of an alibi to keep working.

Even if you have broken the code that can persuade the customer to buy your product, if you don’t have the alibi to rationalize the product’s need for the customer, it is hard to get it across. So before you take your product to the market, ask yourself this question: what’s my alibi?