You may think you know your customers, but there’s a good chance you may not.

You think to yourself “I know that person’s problem. I know exactly what they need.” You then set about trying to sell them a product based on what you perceive their needs to be. But is that what they really want?

To illustrate, I’ll share a story from work. Many people know that following the collapse of Enron and other large corporations, Congress enacted a law know as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). The law is intended to protect the public from experiencing another financial catastrophe like Enron.

A major part of SOX is internal audit. Based on our audits last year, our group had gaps, deficiencies, etc. The proposed solution was to provide SOX training, since we have had none to this point.

The SOX group scheduled our training which was to last an hour. I replied to the sender that I would like to see the materials prior to the meeting to determine if the training would meet our needs.

Did you catch that? The SOX folks had scheduled training when they had not even asked what we needed to know! The hour long meeting could very likely be a huge waste of time and not answer any of the questions we have.

Don’t make the same mistake in your business. Find out exactly what your customer wants and needs. How do you do that? Ask them. Hang out with them. Learn their language. Learn their fears. Learn their joys. So, go meet you customer. Go to a forum or site that has your target customer and interact with them. Learn what really makes them tick.

If you take the time to do that, I guarantee you chances of truly knowing your customer will be significantly greater. You and your customer will be glad you went to the extra effort to connect.

Stay Tuned.