Getting to Know Your Customers

Guest Contributor: Lewis Green
Lewis' Posts - Lewis' Blog


It's always about them not us. They don't care what we think about ourselves; they care about what we can do for them. So we first have to figure that out.

To a great extent this should have been discovered when you wrote your business plan, assuming you wrote one. And then it is adjusted based on your annual strategic plans, assuming you write them. The results of that work define your target markets as narrowly as possible. Think of it as painting a picture of your customers that shows you what they look like, how they think and why they might be interested in buying from you. What motivates and inspires them?

We're talking about research that, unless we have deep pockets, we will need to conduct ourselves. If you sell to other businesses, much of the work today can be done online using data bases such as Dun & Bradstreet or Hoovers. They provide the raw data that tells us the shape and direction of business. We should also research our market's advertising, which tells us something about the business culture and may tell us who that business is targeting. If we don't know that, why would that business hire us? An innovative approach is to find and talk with folks who know the people and the product side of the business we want to sell to. We find them in professional and trade organizations and in Chambers.

But if you sell to consumers, you need to get to know them face-to-face, or use surveys, or use focus groups or watch their behavior when they shop at your competitor's place of business. The bottom line is talk to them.

Once we have narrowly defined our target markets and know as much about what they look like as we know ourselves we then can create messages that stick with our potential clients because they discuss our potentials clients' wants, needs and desires and they resonate with them.

We try to reach out to these clients by sharing stories or narratives. We may do so by sharing our own stories of struggle and success, stories of other businesses, or stories about how our clients were helped by our efforts. The tools we use are:

. Websites
. Blogs
. Podcasts
. Sales Letters
. Sell Sheets
. White Papers
. Post Cards
. Networking
. Advertising
. Signage
. Public Relations

All the time that we are creating these messages, we remember that small and large businesses have the same objective: to grow customers and their bottom lines. Your bottom line: Know who your customers are, what they look like, and what they want and need from you, then sell a solution to meet that want or need, not a product or service.

Dell Small Business 360

Dell has also hit on the trend many big companies are following to create a small business resources center. Dell's is called Small Business 360 and is a first generation SMB site still focused more on product sales than on actually being a resource center.

To Dell's credit, however, they have begun to put in additional information that is not only focused on selling Dell products. For example, under the Starting a Business category they have articles such as 3 Ways to Get Investors Interested in Your New Business, 5 Tips for Estimating Your Start-up Costs, How to Write a Business Plan.

Inside tip: Anything related to marketing, raising capital, or writing a business plan will always be a big hit with small business readers.

It's a step in the right direction and the beginning of the evolution of the Corporate SMB Resource Centers from having a focus of pushing products to building relationships as a trusted advisor and supplier.

Gain a SMB Competitive Edge

Small companies are always looking to their bigger counterparts to get best practices and learn how to grow their business. How does Xerox get positive press coverage? How does Microsoft hire the best people? How does Bell prepare its business plan?

The success of the Service Corps Of Retired Executives, a national nonprofit organization comprised of retired professionals who offer free counseling to small business owners, is only one example of how SMBs are looking up to tap the knowledge of bigger companies.

This all leads to a very important question: Why are you not sharing some of your best practices with SMBs?

There are many processes that your organization takes for granted that would be of tremendous value to a small business owner. What questions do you ask in a job interview? How do you motivate your staff? What kind of incentives do you offer? How do you make sure your suppliers and partners are loyal to you?

With all the new small business resource centers and portals popping up across the Fortune 500 websites, none of them are offering information that is of true value to small business owners. The opportunities lies in providing useful tools and resources by tapping into the intellectual property of your staff and by sharing some of your processes that are taken for granted. Remember, small businesses do not have the structered systems in place to help them grow and are often learning through trial and error.

The first big company to do this will go a long way to winning the hearts and minds of small business owners.

Top 2007 Small Business Challenges

A new report by the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index looked at the top challenges small business owners are facing in 2007. They include:

• Cost of insurance (64 percent)
• Taxes (62 percent)
• Energy prices (54 percent)
• Government regulations (45 percent)
• Finding qualified employees (42 percent)

Of the small business owners who had a written business plan:

• 90 percent say generating stronger revenues is their top priority for the year ahead
• 63 percent also say cutting operating expenses is a major objective
• 57 percent cited reaching more customers
• 42 percent are increasing their advertising budgets
• 37 percent are investing in new technology