Business Commandment - Know Thy Customers

This podcast is the fifth in the series of Top Ten Ways to Build Better Business Abs. In this podcast we discuss the importance of truly doing your homework in terms of knowing your market and your customers.

Knowing your customers better than they know you is a proven method to stack the odds in your favor as a business. Many of the lessons from the first podcast - Start With Why - are applicable to this topic as well.

If you don't know the reasons why your customers purchase products or services it is difficult and certainly risky to market or try to sell them on your company. What are the motivating factors that are driving their decisions? What are the market dynamics. Have they changed? What about the threats from your competition, technology? 

Are you customers purchasing more or less than in previous years? Are you attracting at least 10% new customers to your store or company each year? Are you adding new products or services each year, or at least improving the ones you currently offer. If you aren't doing any of these activities, your business will inevitably start to decline.

What about getting direct feedback from you market? Do you solicit feedback from your customers? How do you do this and in what manner do you incorporate that into how you conduct your business? Do you acknowledge and reward your clientele for their loyalty?

These topics and more make up the subject matter of today's broadcast.

The reading bibliography for today's podcast is

Why We Buy - Paco Underhill

The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz