I know you've heard it before. The expression "know your customers " has been proclaimed from the pages of marketing books and the lips of marketing gurus so often that it has become a cliché. However, it's been my experience that, while everyone gives lip service to
the concept, very few businesses really practice it.
As a result, too many businesses scatter their sales and marketing efforts in a helter-skelter attempt to build the business. They squander their marketing resources and struggle to focus their resources where they will bring the best results. Sales remain flat, and confusion and
frustration grow.
Let's begin by defining the terms. “Knowing your customer" means developing several complimentary processes for acquiring and using important information about your customers, and then regularly and routinely implementing those processes.
Knowing your customers is one of those principles that has value at almost every level of your system. Sales people can use knowledge of their customers to manage their time more effectively and to refine and deliver attractive proposals and presentations. Sales managers can use it to direct sales people to the highest-potential customers. Sales executives can use it to make effective decisions
about products, pricing, and sales processes. Knowledge of your customers is the most powerful of all a company’s accumulated information.
