“Don’t find customers for your products; find products for your customers.” Seth Godin
No business, no matter how innovative its product or service can function in a vacuum. A great many factors contribute to the success of your business. They can be a great product, good strategy, superior implementation, as well as great employees and a good IT environment. While companies can vary individually, successful ones have one thing in common—they are all customer focused.
Any successful company is absolutely customer focused, must know customer needs, and then fulfill that need better than anyone else can. Successful companies know that if they look after their customers, everything else will follow.
The following are some important questions that you should be asking to see how you are doing in marketing:
- Are your marketing activities measurable?
- Is your staff living up to the promises they make to their customers?
- Do you have a great level of communication with your customers?
- Are your competitors constantly pulling ahead?
- Do you have very low repeat customer counts?
- Are you running in circles trying to satisfy everyone and (obviously) not succeeding?
- Are you only relying on cutting prices to make a sale?
- Do you use online marketing effectively?
- Have you defined a marketing budget? How do you know it’s well spent?
- Are you abreast with what is new in the marketing world?
Dr. Ali Asadi is an author, business coach and international speaker. He specializes in helping professionals achieve success in today’s highly competitive business environment. A well-respected entrepreneur who has written over 10 books and e-books purchased by professionals and success seekers in more than 78 countries, Ali’s wisdom on the many Golden Rules of business is widely acclaimed.
