Let's Check Out Those Customer Quirks!

Where Are Your Customers Headed?

The Wall Street Journal sure has a way of describing who the customer is today.  Do they not?  It seems as though they include at least one major article in their daily publication that covers that subject.  They have placed one writer after another onto their pages of print to give some brief descriptions about who the real customer is today.  In fact if you check them out, they support their customer descriptions with complicated charts and detailed data-mined information gathered from hi-tech giants like Google, Amazon and E-Bay.  This gives their opinions added credibility.  It all appears like a pretty sophisticated consumer review for the small business reader to acquire.  I am a junkie, so it all plays well for me.

What about you?  How much of that information does the small business owner truly absorb?  How much of that information becomes part of some strategical planning?  How does the small business leader use this timely marketing information intelligently?  I think maybe the answer to that question can be summed up rather clearly...small business.  Small business is just that...small business.  Do not become offended, however.  I belong in that world.  I am an owner of a small business.  I consult with small business models.  I write business plans as well as employee rules and regs for small business owners.  I am a small business junkie.  The Wall Street Journal and the kinds of business giants like Google and Amazon do not offend me, however.  Instead, they inspire me.  I get it.  We are different.

Small business is small for a number of reasons.  One of which may actually be that they truly do not know who their customer really is.  Many small business owners, in their heart, believe they know who their customer actually is.  I often catch myself thinking in this exact same way.  For a number of logical reasons the small business owner today drives what they do every single day in their work performance patterns not truly knowing who their customers actually are.  When I worked inside my small business model, I never stepped out of my daily world of activities to truly examine my potential customer profiles.  I did all of my daily stuff because I thought I already knew who my customer was.  I was convinced about who I was attracting.  That was good enough for me.  Hence, smaller business.

Giants like Google and Amazon have developed the incredible habit of reaching higher for new customer support.  They have no problem crossing new consumer lines.  They do not become complacent with harboring the current customers they entertain.  These giants reach for new customers every single day.  They study their quirks, their habits and their actions.  Once they get it down they target those groups and go for broke.  The big business world wants it all.  They include your customers in their sights.  That much I know is very true.

You may actually own a small business and you may actually believe you know who your customer truly has become.  My warning for you?  Look out, the giants you despise in your business world have placed those same exact customers you serve smack dab into the cross hairs of their marketing plans.  Your customer has been added to their design.  What's more, they are very good at what they do.  Worse yet, they own the capital to make it happen.  How does this picture pan out for your future?  Limited at best.  It is what it is.

This brings us down to one simple solution.  Get to know the quirks of your future customer potential.  Check out your customers.  Who are they?  Who can they become?  Why would they consider shopping with you?  Better yet, why would they purchase from you?

I think it is about time we check out those customer quirks.  Let's humor ourselves.

Page two.

Find Out Where The Customer Is Headed, Then Get In Front Of Them.

I am a customer.  Did you know that?  So are you.  Did you know that, too?  We are customers.  We buy stuff.  We spend money purchasing stuff that others also buy.  We know who we are and we know why we buy.  We have developed some very solid buying habits in our own lives.  Those habits describe who we are.  We become defined by the way we buy what we buy.  It leads us to support the habits we have.

With those habits come our buying ways.  It is inside of those buying habits that we develop how we believe others will buy.  Our buying habits often times become the main theme for how we determine the ways our customers like to buy.  In many cases, we view our customers as much as we view ourselves.  Our customer profiles may actually look a lot like the same way we see ourselves.  If we like dark chocolate, we actually believe all of our customers like dark chocolate, too.  However, as strange as it may be, some do not.  This simple example is the very reason why so many small business owners miss the target when they try to reach for new markets.  They cannot see who that customer truly is.  They are too busy thinking those customers act like us.  Guess what?  Many do not.  Guess what else is true?  Google does not care if we do not 'get it.' In fact, they would just as soon we remain out of that loop of understanding.

I have always appreciated the art of practicing the correlated views of seeing opposites.  I like opposing views.  They are challenging.  They are frustrating at times and they are often quirky.  I like quirky.  Quirky can deliver some interesting options.  In the small business world of development, interesting options should become mainstream stuff.  Unfortunately, interesting options are usually void.  Hence, small business results and small business blight marches on.  The lack of practicing interesting efforts in small business produces some voids in growth and development.  These very same voids produced by small business for refusing to reach higher are therefore easily filled by those big giants like Google and Amazon.  Small business chooses to be left out.  So goes the customers.  Google and Amazon do not mind serving those quirks.  To the big guys, the money deposits look exactly the same in the transfers they make.  They have no problem collecting it and spending it.

What the heck are those consumer quirks small businesses seems ready to ignore, disrespect or avoid?

Let us list a few.

Excellent service.  Better, more easily accessed consumer services.  Perfect return policies...full refunds, no questions asked.  Free delivery.  Free set-ups.  Easy financing.  Quick transactions.  Wide choices.  Timely products.  Friendly customer service representatives.  A respect for 24/7 operational features.  Attractive facilities.  A higher level of respect for leaving a better footprint on societies environmental concerns.  More useful contributions to benevolence.  Specially trained and highly educated technological support.  Faster delivery.  Lower costs.  A more competitive nature.  An improved understanding for what the consumer truly wants.  An improved consumer experience.  An understanding for future developments.  No tricks, no lies, no prevarications and no deception to harbor the sale.  No lost promises.  No promotions that offer little.  No neglect that business is selective.  No discrimination for who they serve.  No evidence that lays blame on the consumer.  No outrageous expectations for the consumers to meet.  Simplicity honored.  Restrictions avoided.  New ideas offered.  Risk revealing new trends.  Supporting online purchasing.  Gracious consumer treatment.  Yadda, yadda, yadda....

This is the world of your consumer quirks.  These are the things they prefer to see.  If you own a small business and you are not addressing these desires, your consumer growth is shrinking very fast.  Your customers are finding these things offered somewhere else.  We can campaign all night long about how the consumer must try to support the little boxes of America, but until these quirks are honored, the void will continue.  In the meantime, the big boxes roll on to gather more of what has been carelessly left behind.

The consumer quirks are not something imagined in a dream.  They have become the lifestyles of those who spend.  It is what it is.

Until next time...