Talk to Your Customers

Companies that talk to their customers succeed. Companies that don't, fail.

I hope you are communicating effectively with your customers. If you don't know who they are or what they want, how can you possibly sell them your products or services?

If you aren't talking to your customers, you have probably fallen into one of these traps:

• Losing attitude #1 - You are so pressured to get short-term results that you overlook long-term strategies. Of course, there are times when you need to generate profits quickly. But at some point, you need to understand your customers and market to them strategically. If not, any success you achieve will be short-lived.
• Losing attitude #2 - You already know your customers so well, why ask them anything? Another version of this attitude, possibly even worse, is, "My customers are just like me and they think just like me."
• Losing attitude #3 - You welcome good news, but not bad. It is great to hear from customers who have wonderful things to say about you. But are you also talking to them when they call to complain? Complaints are better than praise. They indicate areas where you need to improve.
• Losing attitude #4 - You have blind faith in your product or service. You think it is so great that it will succeed with no effort from you. This line of thinking also gets you to ignore your competitors. Remember that the more successful you are, the harder they are gunning for you.
• Losing attitude #5 - You think that you don't need to understand and target specific consumer groups. All people are really the same, right? No, wrong! Your profits are maximized when you understand just who your customers are so you can market to them strategically.

So the bottom line is . . .

Talk to your customers often and efficiently. Visit them to see how they are using what you have to sell. Survey them. Take them into focus groups and determine what they like and dislike about your offerings. When they call to complain, capture what they have to say and share it with everyone in your organization.

Ultimately, your marketing can only succeed if you listen.

To learn more about marketing effectively, investigate Branding for Profit, Trump University's newest self-instructional program. You'll learncritical skills for marketing effectively in today's competitive marketplace.