Many people today are in love with the wrong things in business. They are obsessed with products and services, IT systems, business processes, office norms, business logistics, and information structures. It is good to have all these but only when they don’t come into the way of satisfying customers’ needs. Do not have any emotional attachment with them; discard them, break them, change them if they don’t make your customers happier.
Looking at this contrasting example – when you are in love with somebody, you would practically be falling head over heels with obsession and the need to know him/her. You would like to identify what he or she loves the most, and what they normally like to spend their time doing. Once a lover gets to know what irritates her, what makes her uncomfortable, and what her fantasies are, he will spend sleepless nights to fulfil her desires.
Just as you treat your lover, you should, in the same way be in a position to treat your customers. How will you do this one may ask? Well for one, you should be willing to break all the set rules to keep your object of utmost adoration happy. You will even go out of your way to add variety to what you are currently offering, and completely restructure how you communicate with them. To top everything, you should also change your dressing style when you present yourself to them, and lastly bend or break all rules to ensure that they are always right. You do all this for their convenience and happiness and to ensure that your love continues.
Back in my rural home for the holidays, my uncle let me hang around his store to apparently “teach” me valuable lessons on how to run a business, and his model just like so many others, is built on profit realization alone. Sure, profit is one of the corner stones for which we go into business, but, in no way, is it the only fuel that should be used to fire up the business. Well, my belief is that if you gave your customer all that he needs, special packages presented just the way he would want it, the only result of this would be that he will willing pay generously, since my mark-up profit is the only compensation I can get for the value I create for him.
What Steve Jobs did was not to trust a traditional market researcher to hammer into him what the customer needs. Its was Steve’s belief that a majority of the customers hardly knew what they want, and thus any data from market research negates the purpose of serving their needs.
Some considered Jobs a mad man, but loved his customers so much that every singe product produced from Apple stores were beyond the consumer’s expectations. This is where the science of identifying the unspoken need is all about, and the reason why products from Apple make you go, “yes that is what I want!”, even without a single advertisement commercial.
The moment you are in love with somebody you always try to foresee their unexpressed desires, and plan ways of surprising them, because you know that is when they will truly feel loved. For all of you out there in business, when you do fall in love with that customer of yours, it will surprise you just how far it can take you, but one sure thing is that you wont complain about the the jump in profits and the the sense of fulfilment and contentment you will get.
