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Know your customers and increase your profits

Guest post by: Joseph Lizio

Article Overview: Every wonder how your business can improve? Or, do you see your competitors striving ahead while your business gets left behind! There is a simple fix and it all begins with knowing your customers.

Know your customers and increase your profits

Everyday, I get asked questions by business owners across this nation about their customers - e.g. who they are, how to get more of them or even how to get them to buy.

These questions are hard for me to answer as I am not a customer of all these companies and these questions usually relate directly to the company's products or service or directly to its market or industry. But, while I cannot usually answer these questions with specific guidance, there is a very simple and common method in increasing your customer base and ultimately your business profits and that is to know your customers.

If you know your customer these questions would already be answered. Therefore, get to know your customers. If you are afraid to ask your current customers or potential customers questions regarding your business - then, how do you expect to sell to them - to let them know about your business and how your offerings can improve their lives? This is one of the simplest but hardest concepts that business owners face - talking to and getting information from their customers.

But, it is your customers that will ultimately make or break your company. You should understand why customers buy from you (and not from your competitors) or why they buy from your competitors and not you, who else they consider when making their purchase, where they get their information about products in your industry and, most importantly, what need they perceive as being met by your offerings or similar products.

Knowing this critical information about your customers will not only put you above your competitors but will also provide information you need in developing or offering future products and services or even in improving your current products and services. What if you could tweak your current product and double your sales. But, by not knowing your customers and knowing what needs to be tweak - your business will never meet this potential opportunity.

To get this information, you only have to start asking questions. This can be done informally as customers are checking out, browsing around, at trade shows, networking events or visiting your website or it can be done formally with focus groups, mailings/surveys or even customer lead discussions groups.

People like to talk about themselves so provide them the opportunity to do so. If you can pull this off - provide them an opportunity to talk - then you only need to: 1) listen and 2) keeping the conversation near or around your product or company.

While many sales experts will provide advice on what questions to ask and how to structure these questions, I prefer a more informal type conversation as it allows customers to open up more and elaborate further. Plus, informal conversation is much more comfortable (on both sides) than a setting of predetermined, structured questioning - you don't want this to seem like a police interrogation! Further, formal questions are designed to get specific answers - but, there are times when non-specific answers can lead your business down a new path. A path that you as the business owner might not have ever considered; a path that may be much more profitable than the one you are currently on.

The thing to keep in mind here is understanding why your customer buys from you (how you meet their need better than your competitors' products) and where they get their information. Thus, you know how to target them both with message and media.

Getting to know your customers means having the tools and information to not only keep them satisfied but to keep them loyal to you as well. Plus, keeping open dialog with your target group will help keep you abreast of the changes happening within your industry as well as the changing needs of your most important assets - your customers. The end result - better understand your customers to better meet their needs and in turn they will help you improve your business and its profits.

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Article Tags: business, changes, customer, profit, sales



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Can advice come from outside your specific market? - Welcome to the Forum, Michael... I'm curious about what it is you are really looking for. If you aren't able to find people in your market have you considered that perhaps you may already know more than you realize? Is it possible someone can help you who isn't necessarily in your specific market? For example, you mentioned numbers, but I don't know what you are looking for. Do you mean you want to increase your profits? If the issue is profits, you might not need someone specific on what you do. What you might need is someone to brainstorm profit boosting ideas with. What are some of the other answers you are looking for?
Joint Ventures?? - I read this following paragraph in another business forum. Has anyone used joint ventures and had successful results? How do you go about setting up joint ventures? [quote:3vnvuml9]Joint Ventures have been, and always will be one of the most powerful marketing tactics ever, and for good reason. They are easy to set up, and they cost you nothing and if set up correctly will allow you to have more customers than you can handle! So if you promote a great product or service and want to expose it to more prospects, or you you seek ways to increase your sales, but aren't quite sure how to go about it you should definitely consider harnessing the power of Joint Ventures And the best part is that anybody can start using joint ventures to skyrocket their profits. It doesn't matter what you sell, or where you sell it.[/quote:3vnvuml9]
Sound Cash-flow & Balance Sheet - Cash is most important, if you are loaded up with good money, you just need to allocate it to right place, get the right price and make the profits. Your employees will be happy to work with you when you show good enough balance sheet of your accounts, it matters in big way, also customers want to see your company doing well.
Re: Does Anyone have any New Ideas for a Business - You make a good point here Kevin, but if one is really determined to take and idea further and obviously it would have to be a realistic idea then I am sure that there would be some way they could research or find the help they needed even if it meant sharing part of the profits with somebody who can help, provided there were eventually profits to be made. MichelleJ
Advertisement that sales - Plan your marketing programme. It should include commitment to capital resources. If you run a small business, you aren't likely to have a generous enough advertising budget that will allow you to run costly branding or campaign ads. Every advertisement you run must convey to your prospect a solid offer and attractive reasons to act quickly, and result in increased sales and an enhanced image of your company. Good advertising always pays its own way through increased sales and profits, improved cost-effectiveness, reduced selling costs and shortened selling cycles. A useful formula that will help you increase the effectiveness of your advertising efforts is A-I-D-A, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. When creating an advertisement, always remind yourself that it should: (1) capture your prospects' Attention, (2) arouse their Interest in your offer, (3) create their Desire for your product or service, and (4) provide a powerful spur to Action, that is, turn your prospect into buyers. Remember, bad advertising is an unproductive expense, and good advertising is an investment in future profits!


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