Success Comes from Understanding Your Customers

Most of us involved in selling environmental related goods and services tend to automatically think we understand our customers' wants and needs.  We must, after all this is what we do, but the reality is we often do not understand their wants and needs as well as we think we do.  Making this common flawed assumption can dramactically reduce our success in building our business.
 
So why is it so important to understand our customers?  We fortunately live in a world where customers have choices and they can choose our company's products or services or someone else's.   Marketing is about understanding our customers' wants and needs and tailoring our offerings to fulfill those needs as closely as possible.  Typically the company that succeeds at this fundamental task wins the business.
 
Understanding the difference between wants and needs in our markets is crucial.  Wants tend to be what a person desires (I want a Porsche, but I really only need transportation to get me to work).  Needs on the other hand are what people must have to carry on in what they are doing (this applies to personal needs as well as corporate needs).
 
Strategic marketing connects needs to wants and it is important to understand that customers will make purchasing decisions based on needs most of the time. Carefully intertwining needs and wants in your marketing or sales message is a powerful tool that can help your company beat out the competition.
 
So how do you discover clients' wants and needs?  All too often sales and marketing professionals make assumptions or go by their sixth sense.  Unfortunately this often leads to a hit-or-miss outcome.  This is not to say that one's instincts and training are not important, but it does highlight the fact that you need to know your customers' want and needs based on research and fact finding.
 
Successful sales and marketing professionals will tell you that a large percentage of their success is due to understanding their customers before starting the sales or marketing process.  Understanding their needs, perhaps better than they even understand them themselves, will allow you to position your service or product to meet those needs and win the sale. 
 
Give your customers what they need and more (value) and create your marketing message to fit the customers' wants and needs.  Sales and marketing is really more science than art form.   Conduct thorough market research and ask questions of your clients and prospects.  If the situation warrants it consider hiring a market research firm to do the leg work although often market research can easily be done by existing company employees.
 
For anyone that doesn't think understanding customers' wants and needs are crucial just look around your market. In virtually every market segment there tends to be one or two companies that have reached the pinnacles of becoming the market leader.  This rarely happens by accident and almost always happens because a product or service has been perfectly tailored to deliver what their customers want and need. 
 
You'll be amazed at the improved success and confidence you can achieve simply by understanding your customers better than anyone else.