You are NOT Your Customer
When you read things on the internet or in magazines or see them on TV and say to yourself – “Who believes this stuff? That’s not how it really is!” You need to step back and remember one very important thing – your client probably does believe that stuff.
They don’t know the intimate details of your product or field in the way you do, that is why they are coming to you in the first place. It is easy to take things for granted that you see and deal with every day – but if you forget that your client finds them to be amazing, then you won’t amaze your clients.
Remember to look at things from the way a client will, show off the things that make your product special even if they bore the shit out of you because they are still new and shiny to your client. If you’re really on your game, make the stuff that they find boring amazing. Then see what happens to your sales.
I see your point, client empathy is virtuous; but when you’re building products, shouldn’t one build the tool they would use themselves?
Absolutely, and I don’t think what I said misses that at all. But you have to remember to show them why you are the right choice to build their product, and how you do it is the right way to do it – especially if it doesn’t excite you because you do it everyday – because it may just excite them as they’ve never done it that way before.
Fully agree. If I understand the point, that is! I read this to say that being jaded about the tools you use on a daily basis or have long since abandoned is only cool when you’re talking to your contemporaries. Clients and those just learning the trade should not be discouraged from their enthusiasm for the entree toolkit because it will eventually help them understand the more complex things.
I agree wholeheartedly with this post. It’s so easy to just use yourself as a reference point for trying to market/sell something and lose sight of the *actual* customer.
I guess I’m confused by the language of “client” and “product.” Do you sell products to clients? Or services?
Or rather, do you sell services to customers? Or clients.
Either way, I suggest you take a look at this blog post, which I found very insightful. It’s long, but worth the read. http://mattgemmell.com/2009/04/29/client-requests
I try to keep the language fairly general on the blog. But even if you’re selling services you are selling products (your service is your product). Clients/Customers are semi-interchangeable but I feel strongly about the difference most of the time and wrote a post here about what I see as the difference: http://www.chrisconrey.com/2009/04/17/customers-vs-clients
Just had this convo today. Client told me he wouldn’t be interested in an idea we had, yet HE’S NOT HIS CUSTOMER.