Focus on How, Not What
Posted by aonenetworks On December 19, 2012
Many companies ask of their competition and of their customers, “What do you do? What do you need? What can I do to make you like me more?” But they’re all focusing on the wrong aspect of business. What you should really be focusing on is “how?”
When you have to make a choice on whether you should focus on and understand your competition or your customers, make sure that you always put your customers first. Never focus on the “how” of your competition if you haven’t first figured out the “how” of your customers.
In understanding how your customer works, you inform yourself of what you need to change to make your company stronger. Here are a couple of how’s you can ask yourself today.
How Does Your Competition View the Customer?
Do you have any idea on how the competition gauges their audience? This question is especially important if you’re having trouble figuring out how you should be looking at your audience, and if all of your guesses so far have led you to dead ends.
How Do You Expect to Grow?
Miracles don’t always happen, and money doesn’t generally come to you if you just wait for it. You have to stand up and fight with those in your niche to succeed. How do you expect to do that? Get together with all of the people in your office and brainstorm about how you’re going to continue to work towards profitable ventures.
How are You Going to Deal with Costs?
Good customer service isn’t cheap, and it will either cost you a ton of money or a ton of time. Depending on where you are in the development of your business, you may have the spare change to hire some customer reps or you may not. Either way, how are you going to deal with the cost (of time or money) in your business? This is a good time to look at competition and see how they manage to balance their books on a daily basis.
