I was given a link to this post which talks about the fact that an entire industry can have a wrong perception about itself. The outside world can view it as a commodity while the industry sees itself as being the antithesis of commodity based.
The post had this fantastic cartoon;
The text down the bottom say “what a lovely grain of sand, to bad you’re lying on a beach”.
The advice (admittedly for the wine industry) from the post, is to really understand your customers – who are they? what do they need? why do they buy? All too often producers f both products and services spend all their energy focusing on knowing everything about their offering, and little or no time studying those whom they wish to sell that offering too.
So here’s an impassioned plea to get into the mind of the customers – build personas, create advisory groups, do anything – just focus on something other than the internals of your offering
Agreed! Listen to the customers. They should be the key focus.
I’m absolutely amazed though at the number of businesses I talk to or come across who don’t get this – they are building their business concepts around technology, or the latest thing, ie: IPhones, Web2.0, Twitter etc but don’t at the heart of the business grasp the simple fact that it’s simply about meeting the needs of the custom.
Do that and they’ll put a dollar in your pocket.
Don’t force customers onto technology they’re not ready for or not using, rather meet them where they’re at and offer good service.