Businesses are often so focused on selling and making money that they stray away from their core message. The way your customer receives you is crucial for sustained sales over time. If you’re operating with the short term just in mind you’re setting your business up for failure.
- Why did you get into business?
- What are your core values?
- What sets you apart from your competitor?
- Why should your customer favor you over anyone else?
Selling is easy. Cast a wide enough net and you’ll catch some fish.Catching a specific type of fish and plenty of it is a whole different story.
- What is your customer telling you?
- Do you know their lifestyle inside and out?
- Have you bought their mindspace?
- Will they give you your exact message or something completely different when asked?
Your customers don’t just exist for you when they buy your product. They always exist. How do you always exist for your customers?
It’s important to keep your lines of communication open with your customer. Constant feedback is the only way you can know exactly how they feel about you. Their word isn’t the whole picture but it is a major part of it.
Some tools you should be using to gauge your business impact are:
- Buying patterns
- General industry & product consensus
- Word of mouth in social media networks
- Feedback on relevant bulletin boards
- Comments on blogs
- Customer service surveys
- Face to face questioning
When was the last time you asked your customer what they thought and felt about your business? What did they say?
What can you do RIGHT NOW to find out how your business is doing?
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Every day I ask readers, clients and potential customers to come to The Lost Jacket and comment on what I am doing. Do they always do so? Actually not a lot of them do unfortunately…but the option is always there for them. I also try and look at page views, conversions and inbound email to judge how successful I have been.
Stuart Foster’s last blog post..There Is No Try
Damien: Such great stuff! It happens over and over again – companies “forget there they came from” or why they started in the first place. It takes strong folks to stick to their guns when it comes to core values. “How do you find out how your business is doing?” You ask your customers of course, but actually DOING that (the 99%) is where everyone falls behind. I believe it’s a conscious effort to remind yourself as a business over and over again, I need to tap into my customers.
Not everything that we want customers to do are the indicators that will tell us what we need to do. You’ll be surprised what someone will tell you when you take yourself out of the way. Just listen. Without apprehension, without presumptions, without preconceptions- just listen. And ask. Asking without listening is just hearing yourself talk, and I can do that in my own room if necessary.