Best advice if you're just starting or growing a business:
Focus at your customer more than your product. Get fixed on your
customer experience, and your product will keep changing to serve them
best. But fix your product, and customers will find a path that fits
them, with or without you.
If you're waiting on the street corner, wondering where all your customers are, this post is for you.
We've moved from the industrial age where it was all about the product
and productization to the technological age where it's all about the
customer and customization.
Instead of focusing at product
development and production lines (which we learned about and were a part
of at school), focus at customer experiences and customization lines.
Your business doesn't start when you have a product. It starts when you
have a customer. So who is your perfect customer? Start from there and
ask yourself (and them):
Problem - What's the problem they need solved?
Promise - What's the benefit you deliver to them by solving it?
Product - How will you solve it better than others?
Proof - Why should they trust you?
Keep upgrading your answers (and your products) regularly. Because what
your customers need, their expectations and how they are being served
will keep changing fast. And once you get into flow, you'll begin to
know what they need before them, and they'll begin pre-buying your next
product.
"Get closer than ever to your customer. So close that
you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves." ~
Steve Jobs
The easiest way to future proof your business is to
have customers that love you. The easiest way to fail is to love your
idea or product more than you love your customers. So find your
soul-market and fall in love all over again.:
Focus at your customer more than your product. Get fixed on your
customer experience, and your product will keep changing to serve them
best. But fix your product, and customers will find a path that fits
them, with or without you.
If you're waiting on the street corner, wondering where all your customers are, this post is for you.
We've moved from the industrial age where it was all about the product
and productization to the technological age where it's all about the
customer and customization.
Instead of focusing at product
development and production lines (which we learned about and were a part
of at school), focus at customer experiences and customization lines.
Your business doesn't start when you have a product. It starts when you
have a customer. So who is your perfect customer? Start from there and
ask yourself (and them):
Problem - What's the problem they need solved?
Promise - What's the benefit you deliver to them by solving it?
Product - How will you solve it better than others?
Proof - Why should they trust you?
Keep upgrading your answers (and your products) regularly. Because what
your customers need, their expectations and how they are being served
will keep changing fast. And once you get into flow, you'll begin to
know what they need before them, and they'll begin pre-buying your next
product.
"Get closer than ever to your customer. So close that
you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves." ~
Steve Jobs
The easiest way to future proof your business is to
have customers that love you. The easiest way to fail is to love your
idea or product more than you love your customers. So find your
soul-market and fall in love all over again.