How Well Do You Know Your Customers?

Published: Thu, 11/06/25

Updated: Thu, 11/06/25

How Well Do You Know Your Customers?

Again this week I encountered what has become a common event. I was called in to consult with a client. Sales were flat for too long, and the client knew that something had to be done. One of my first questions was this: “What do you know about your customers?” Once again the answer was a glazed look and some mumbling about information in the credit department.

Trying to refine a sales system without adequately knowing your customers is like playing pin the tail on the donkey — you’ll stumble around blindly unless you’re lucky enough to stick something by chance.

On the other hand, if you become good at this critical portion of your sales and marketing efforts, you’ll be able to focus your sales and marketing efforts in the sharpest, most effective areas.

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.

What Does Knowing Your Customers Mean?

Let’s begin by defining the terms. “Knowing your customer” means developing several complementary 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 have value at almost every level of your system. Salespeople can use the 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 salespeople 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.

Sales Managers’ Course

Our Sales Leader’s Excellence and Influence Course provides sales managers a simple, highly effective five-part system, enabling them to provide more direction and feedback to the sales force and be in better control of their time.

Become equipped with the ultimate management system. Take the next step in growing your business by attending our 28th sales managers’ course, beginning January 9th, 2026.

"Dave Kahle's course on the Sales Management System is a must for all sales managers. The process that is learned is for, not just the new manager but, those who have been in their profession for years. Since a sales manager will only achieve their goals through other people, this course helps take you through what every sales manager needs to know."

— Rick Woltjer, Lumbermen's, Inc.

The cohort is limited to 12 people, so don’t delay.

For more information, click here

Your ability to know your customers begins when you develop a computer database in which you routinely collect useful information about your customers. If you have a CRM or ERP system, you probably have the mechanism necessary to manage this. If not, then you must create an account profile form, and see to it that it is used regularly.

A Systematic Approach

An account profile form is a document full of questions, or more precisely, spaces for the answers to questions. The questions are designed to reveal details about each of your accounts. The form is the document on which you store that useful information. It can exist in a couple of different forms – paper or electronic. If you are using CRM software, then the account profile form can be several screens for each account. If you’re not computerized, then it needs to be created on paper. Regardless of the media, the principles and processes are the same.

In addition to the information about the business to whom you are trying to sell, you need another version of the form for each of the key individuals within those accounts. That’s called a personal profile, and it is the mechanism you use to collect personal information about the key decision-makers. You apply the same concepts and principles to the task of collecting personal information about the key decision-makers within your accounts. You may end up with one document for the company and five to ten personal profiles for all the key people within that account.

How to Create This Important Systems Tool

1. Identify each of the markets to which you sell

You may sell to a number of different kinds of customers. Each different type of business should have its own version of the form. For example, I sold to hospitals, large outpatient clinics, and independent laboratories. The differences between these institutions were enormous, and each had a different business structure, set of needs, and decision-making apparatus. So each warranted a unique account profile form.

2. Create a list

Begin the form by listing all the things you’d like to know about your account. For example, you might find it useful to know the number of employees, the SIC code, which competitors are currently involved in the account, who your customer’s customers are, why... READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Featured YouTube Podcast:

The Loss of Discipline and the Opportunity for You

In recent years, I’ve seen a deeper degradation in the learning potential of the work force fueled by a growing inability to concentrate. I’m afraid that much of the adult population in this country has become so conditioned to sound bytes, texts and tweets that they have lost the discipline to “do the work.” Like an unused muscle, their ability to concentrate has atrophied. On one hand, that is alarming. On the other, it is a tremendous opportunity for you.

Featured Podcast:

Customer Visits & Untouchable Salespeople

Join me as I respond to a couple of questions from sales managers. One has to do with customer visits, and the other untouchable salespeople. Let's drill deeper into both of these issues, with some practical wisdom for situations that you may encounter.

Everyone needs a bit of inspiration, education and motivation.

Forward this message to your friends and colleagues.

Like what you’ve read? Become a subscriber. Click here.

P.O. Box 523
Comstock Park MI 49321
USA

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options