Know Your Customers

Know your customers! This is the first step to envisioning a winning approach to building your business. When I talk about knowing your customers I am talking about knowing them as distinct groups of people with some common bond that brings them to your business. But I am also talking about knowing them as individuals so you can understand how their need for the “thing” that you sell fits into the overall picture of their daily life. Knowing them as groups is absolutely essential to any business growth. Going beyond that and knowing your most important customers as individuals will take your business to heights that are otherwise unattainable. So let’s start with what is often called your “target market” and what I refer to as you customer group personalities. First things first. If you think you sell to everyone, then you are destined to failure or mediocrity at best. You can NOT be everything to everyone. No matter what business you are in, the need to focus on understanding who are your most valuable customer group personalities is vital to focusing your efforts on serving those groups better than any of your competition. How much you have to narrow the picture of your primary customer group personalities depends upon the nature of your business. There are many potential aspects to the primary customer groups you serve which include such things as: Geography Income Profession Interests Age Sex Marital Status And Many More Each business has a unique combination of the above mentioned aspects that are relevant to their business. For example some business (such as internet based businesses) can sell on a global basis, while others, such as restaurants, are much more geographically limited in their primary customer group personalities. The important thing is to know which aspects are relevant to your business and to apply that knowledge to developing your business marketing strategies. Now let’s get on to knowing your customers as individuals. Obviously it is not possible to know everything about all the customers you serve. However, it sure does make a huge difference to know at least something about your most important customers. See if you can describe just the top 10% of your customers off the top of your head. Do you even know their names? Do you know their interests? Do you know why the patronize your business? Do you know them as anything more than someone that just bought something from you? I am willing to bet that many of you don’t have clue. If you have never taken the time or effort to learn these basic things about even your most important customers then you are leaving more money on the table than you want to know! The first key to building a business on relationships with customers is knowing your customers as well as you can!