Tip #8: Learn To Think Like Your Customer

[Paul Elliott]

While we are on the subject of customer relations (See Tip #27 in this section and the free e-course in my signature below.), learning to think like your customer is vital

Not only must you learn to think like your customer, but you must practice thinking like your customer--and continue to practice it. Until you can learn to "get into the head" of your customer and understand him or her, you are committing massive waste--a waste of time, money, and talent.

While it's true you may succeed in you business without this thinking and practicing, you will certainly not succeed as well.

If a business which does not have a policy of thinking like its customers feels it is succeeding, the next important question is, "Succeeding? Compared to what?" I frequently get the response, "We're succeeding compared to our competition." However, those same businesses usually don't have a clue how they are doing compared to their competition. All they know is that they are able to pay their bills and they may see that there are more customers.

The reason they have no clue is that they are not testing. They are not testing anything, much less everything, as they should be doing. Testing and measuring are essential to know how your sales and marketing are doing. Only then can you know what you need to change to improve your customers' responses and your sales.

It is true that testing and measuring take some time and usually a little money. However, the return makes each of those negligible . . . but only if you use the data you collect.

Too often the business owner will collect data but fail to use it. An example would be the fish bowl a restaurant owner will place for business cards for a weekly drawing for dinner for two. Customarily the owner will neither count the number of cards collected each day of the week throughout the year (nor save the cards for additional marketing). This when compared to the numbers of diners each day and the average ticket per day is very powerful information.

What is the real value of those business cards? Most often the restaurant owner will simply throw away the cards when the drawing is over and start filling the bowl again for the next week. This is a very shortsighted move.

The people who will leave their business cards have begun a process of communication. They have given you permission to contact them. That business owner should certainly enter their addresses into a database and send those people cards with coupons and specials, offer them special free meals during their birthday months, make the cards a coupon (for a limited time) for 2-for-1 meals for as many people as they can bring in for a single meal. The possibilities are only limited by your own imagination.

That restaurant owner will double his business in a single year merely by getting each customer, by reason of special offers, to come in twice as often during the next year. The same principle applies to most businesses in one form or another.

Want to double your business in the next year? Can you stand it? (Most businesses can't stand doubling their business in a year!) If so, stay in contact with your customers and build your relationship with them!

In the pursuit of more and better businesses!

Paul

[cbscreative]

Paul, I think the principle of thinking like the customer is very likely one of the most common failures in business (even if the business is "succeeding" they could be failing on this one). If you read company literature and web sites, one of the biggest and most common mistakes I see is the the people producing the materials are talking to themselves, from their own perspective, rather than talking to the customer from the customer's perspective. When I am asked to edit materials, that is one of the primary things I have to fix.

It's an easy mistake to make too. People get attached to their own business, which is good because they should be, but it often limits the ability to be objective or think like the person who doesn't know your business. The advantage of bringing in an outsider or gathering info from customers is it allows you to get into the mind of those you are trying to reach. They will see things you don't because you get too familiar, while they may be saying, "Huh, could you explain that better? What does that mean to me?"

[Paul Elliott]

Paul, I think the principle of thinking like the customer is very likely one of the most common failures in business (even if the business is "succeeding" they could be failing on this one). If you read company literature and web sites, one of the biggest and most common mistakes I see is the the people producing the materials are talking to themselves, from their own perspective, rather than talking to the customer from the customer's perspective. When I am asked to edit materials, that is one of the primary things I have to fix.

It's an easy mistake to make too. People get attached to their own business, which is good because they should be, but it often limits the ability to be objective or think like the person who doesn't know your business. The advantage of bringing in an outsider or gathering info from customers is it allows you to get into the mind of those you are trying to reach. They will see things you don't because you get too familiar, while they may be saying, "Huh, could you explain that better? What does that mean to me?"

Excellent points, Steve. This has been my experience exactly! It's a tragedy that business owners and managers fail to understand this foundational principle, but it's a widespread "disease" that traps so many into bankruptcy or very mediocre performance.

Paul

[orion_joel]

If you truly spend some time and starting thinking like the customer i would expect many business owner's may have some very enlightening findings and realise how far wrong they have been in the approach to some of the things they do. However, i would actually expect that in doing this there are some business owners that do this and then try to hide the fact from themselves for fear they have made a mistake.

It is funny that you mention business owners taking the comparison of their business against another. I have found this quite funny and come across it more then once. I knew a guy that worked in a computer store and one day was talking with him about the ability of the local market to sustain two stores (the one he worked in and another in a better location). He responded with "We are not doing great, but we are doing better then the other shop". I wanted to slap him, how can you seriously make that sort of statement honestly knowing everything par for par.

[Paul Elliott]

If you truly spend some time and starting thinking like the customer i would expect many business owner's may have some very enlightening findings and realise how far wrong they have been in the approach to some of the things they do. However, i would actually expect that in doing this there are some business owners that do this and then try to hide the fact from themselves for fear they have made a mistake.

I suspect that, had they done an effective analysis with careful thinking BEFORE they spent money and opened their doors, they would never have opened their doors at all, preferring to do something else with their time, energy, effort, and money. But by the time the "light comes on," they've already committed to a flawed effort.

Sadly, people decide what they want to do and what they wish to sell without looking at their situation and the marketplace where they'll be doing business. There are no laws against squandering time, energy, effort, and money. There aren't even any against stupidity.

When they fail, they say, "This community won't support such-and-such." I'm watching a local store with precisely that attitude. The owner even expressed that to me in so many words. They wonder why they have declining business. Duh!


It is funny that you mention business owners taking the comparison of their business against another. I have found this quite funny and come across it more then once. I knew a guy that worked in a computer store and one day was talking with him about the ability of the local market to sustain two stores (the one he worked in and another in a better location). He responded with "We are not doing great, but we are doing better then the other shop". I wanted to slap him, how can you seriously make that sort of statement honestly knowing everything par for par.

Again, there aren't even any laws against stupidity. Even when people decide to think, they often don't like the results, so, as you say, they hide the facts from themselves. :confused:

Paul

[cbscreative]

If you think jail overcrowding, and the US having the largest percentage of incarcerated citizens in the world is a problem now, imagine how bad it would be if we made stupidity illegal.

[Paul Elliott]

If you think jail overcrowding, and the US having the largest percentage of incarcerated citizens in the world is a problem now, imagine how bad it would be if we made stupidity illegal.

Yeah, all the non-stupid ones would have to be placed in protective custody! :eek:

[cbscreative]

Yeah, all the non-stupid ones would have to be placed in protective custody! :eek:
Which leads me to wonder...protected by who?

[Paul Elliott]

Which leads me to wonder...protected by who?

By the stupids from the crazy stupids. <Hmmm . . . wondering if that is what the local politicians are proclaiming to do from the ones in Washington!> :confused:

Paul

[Marcomguy]

You're right, Paul, thinking like your customer is hard to do but so necessary. As vendors or consultants, we only get a glimpse into one aspect of our customers' work concerns. But it's important to try and find out what else they have on their plate and what they're trying to achieve.

[Paul Elliott]

You're right, Paul, thinking like your customer is hard to do but so necessary. As vendors or consultants, we only get a glimpse into one aspect of our customers' work concerns. But it's important to try and find out what else they have on their plate and what they're trying to achieve.

Exactly, Marcom. The more we understand the customer from his or her internal perspective--problems, needs, desires--the better we can present our products or services to those people in the ways they will understand and find appealing.

Paul