15th Day of Christmas

Turn Your Thinking Around

Customers don’t come to you. You go to your customers. I have been saying this since day one: it is not about you, your product or your services. They will not buy from you just because you want them to. It is all about what you satisfy emotionally in the customer.

What if you were thirsty and wanted a glass of water? You could get it at no cost from the tap in your kitchen. You could go to a grocery and buy it in bulk. What if it was a hot summer day and your family was sitting in a great location along a parade route? Along comes a guy pulling a wagon full of cold bottled water.

The melting ice the bottles rest on sparkles in the sunlight. You suddenly feel parched. Each drop that drips from the wagon makes you yearn for a taste. It looks so refreshing. Your kids begin to whine that they too are thirsty as they tug at your trousers demanding water. He tells you it costs five times the normal price. Reason does the math. Still you reach for your wallet and buy it. You feel good. The water seller is rewarded for all the cost and effort he took to get cold water to you when you most needed it.

My gift to you today is a wagon of opportunity. Pack up your wares and take them to your customers. Over the past 14 days you have been assembling a dossier for each of your customer segments. You have established outposts and built bridges between them and your web site. Using this information, think of at least five occasions when your customers have the greatest need—and therefore desire—for your product or service. What will it take to put you in front of them at that critical point?

Pick the best of these ideas. Figure out the logistics. Do it. Measure the end results. The more you repeat this process, the better trained you will be to spot opportunities and take advantage of them.

Not every day will have a parade, but every day there will be an opportunity. You will not find it if you don’t look.