Think like your clients

I attended a Vistage meeting last week and made the commitment to call some of my clients and find out what they can buy from Silver Square that they cannot get anywhere else. The goal in this exercise is to understand what our clients are thinking about us, because really, it doesn’t matter what we think we do well or bring to the market place, it’s what our clients think we do well and bring to the market place.

When we work with a new client, we work hard to get inside the minds of what their clients think about them; do they have the time to read long newsletters, are they even in front of their computers all day, do they enjoy being outside, do they care about keeping up with the industry news, do coupons motivate them, does a freebie now and then build loyalty? We understand this practice, but we haven’t done super well at monitoring it for our own clients.

In our communication audit and marketing plan services, one of the steps in the process are to speak with clients about their thoughts and feelings on the client’s work, style, value, etc. We also facilitate a one hour strategy session with employees, sorry leadership team, you’re not invited, to further gather information about what makes the client tick and how the strategy of the company is or isn’t hitting that mark.

I challenge you to think about how your clients are thinking. If you’re not 100 percent sure what they think (which you won’t be) you need to begin asking. Make the time to work on youself, it will pay off!