Are you learning from your customers and clients? If not, you aren’t paying attention to the most important marketing resource you have.

Most of the business people I meet look to their competitors to figure out how to market their business. “Well this competitor is the most successful so I’ll copy what they’re doing.”

Unfortunately, this rarely works well. You aren’t privy to everything they may be doing and if they are really successful, their marketing is probably integrated into their whole company.

Their employees may have special training, they may be combining several different marketing methods at once, some of which you may not know about.

Their entire company may revolve around their slogan like Federal Express who developed the slogan “When it absolutely, positively has to be there the next day” and then gave carte blanche to their employees to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Brilliant marketing, by the way.

So what can you learn from your clients and customers?

Everything. (This is probably exactly what Federal Express did.)

You can find out what they’d really like from you. What their dream product or service would be. Can you create that? Can you come close to it? Are there services or products you could add to your line or business that would bring you closer to being their dream vendor or store or service?

Are their services you could offer that would help you integrate into your customer’s lives or your client’s company? So you become the “indispensable team member”? Are their free services or products you could offer that would ingratiate them to you?

Listen to your clients and customers and build your business around their wants, needs, and desires rather than your perception of what your company is or is supposed to be.

Remember, until Henry Ford came out with the Model T, cars were perceived as playthings for the rich. In fact, he had a heck of a time finding financing to build this car because his bankers “perception” was the same as everyone else’s. Car makers build cars for the rich. Period. There was no market amongst the “common” folk.

But Henry listened to the people and realized they would buy if someone simply offered something in their price range. He did, they did, and the rest is history…

Originally posted 2008-09-10 13:11:33. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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