One of my favorite wastes of 30 minutes, every Friday, is to listen to Coffee With Brent Adamson and Matt Heinz. (For regular listeners of the show, you will know my tongue is deeply planted in my cheek). Not quoting Brent directly, he raised an issue of:
Why are we so obsessed about what customers think of us and our products?
It’s a fascinating question.
In some ways it’s very natural, as human beings we tend to be self centered, we are driven by our own interests, self interests. So as sellers, it’s natural to carry that same behavior into our jobs. And in our companies. collectively, we obsess on our products, goals, and success. As a result, we get constantly reinforcing behaviors that focus on us.
But when we take a step back and ask, “Are our customers as obsessed with us and our products as we are?” Alternatively, “How can we get our customers to be obsessed with us and our products?”
Those seem to be our goals as sellers.
But when we think about it, just like us, our customers are self centered—-why wouldn’t they be? As a result of the same mechanisms that apply to us and our organizations, they are obsessed by what they do and their success.
And that’s the gap that keeps us separated–the natural obsessions we and our customers have.
The challenge becomes, how do we close that gap?
The behaviors sellers display in closing the gap is, “We have to tell them more about us, our company, how successful we are, and how great our products will be for them?” If we do this with more focus and energy, if we keep pummeling customers with those messages, eventually they will become as obsessed with us and our products as we are.
But that’s really tough!
And our competitors are trying to do the same thing, pulling the customer in their direction.
At some point we recognize the reality, the customer doesn’t care, to them it’s all about them and what they want to achieve. It’s about their success.
What if we chose to behave differently. What if we harnessed the natural tendency for customers to be obsessed with themselves and their success? What if we jumped on their bandwagon? What if we became as obsessed with their success are they are?
Would that make them more interested in engaging us?
Would it make it easier for them to become interested in us? Perhaps, bridging the “interest gap” by connecting the dots between the customer interests, their concerns, their goals, and how we can help them can drive interest in what we do?
The reality is there are few reasons customers should be as interested in us, our products and what we do. Until we create a reason for them to be interested, until we show them how to bridge the interest gap, they will and should pursue their self interest.
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