As humans, we operate in our physical environment through the use of our senses; seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, tasting.
For some, there is a belief in a sixth sense, a sort of spiritual awareness that something is happening or happened. What interests me is that in business, we’re often trying to operate on assumptions and almost purposely not using our senses.
In our surveys of business owners, we find many who are not listening to their customers, not observing what is happening with their market or competition. We find many business owners are confused about their marketing, and a very good way to solve this confusion is to look at what is going on, to listen to your customers, and in this way make sense of your marketing.
In this article I want to share three simple tips you can use right now in your business to reduce the confusion:
1. START LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS.
By regularly communicating with customers and asking them some simple questions you can quickly learn what your business is doing well, and what you can improve. This can have dramatic effects on your lifetime value of your customer; a customer who knows they have been listened to, and for whom issues have been satisfactorily solved, will be happier and more likely to continue to do business with you.
2. STOP LISTENING TO VESTED INTERESTS.
I also counsel our clients to not take advice from vested interests. For example, I’d never listen to Facebook about whether it is right for my business to advertise on social media; I’d find out for myself or ask someone independent who has experience in using that channel for my type of business.
3. START OBSERVING TRENDS IN YOUR MARKET.
What are other companies doing? Are their new competitors? Has anyone introduced a new way of serving your clients that might threaten your business model?
These are three tips that you can quickly implement to make more sense of your marketing and make it more effective.
I hope you enjoy the journey towards using your senses more in your business; listen, observe and win!
Enjoy your day!
Originally published on Smallville.