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Your Marketing Reality – A Metaphor for “The Customer is Always Right?” Part II

By A. Toussaint Goudeaux

PART II

The customer is always right?

A quick review.

There are 3 types of customers.

The normal customer – that’s most of your business, they just do trades with you.

Then there is the pseudo-customer – they’re the annoying part of business, in essence they mistakenly did business with you, by accident.

Finally there are clients, they move beyond a simple transaction to a growing evolving process, a relationship.

Go deeper in to the difference between a normal customer and a client.

“Intelligence is the ability to make distinctions.”

Someone with football intelligence can make a myriad of distinctions between different plays, players, and situations. Someone without it, cannot – it all looks chaotic, it all looks the same.

Imagine a world where everything was simply called “thing.” Your mom was called “thing,” your business, your leg, the sun. What a boring world. It would be a world devoid of communication or distinctions. It’s a confusing world, a dumb-deaf-mute world. You’d make a host of mistakes and reasonably simple decisions would be impossible.

You get a small picture of that with the single word customer.

When you make a distinction, things get a bit clearer.

Some people are customers and some are clients.

Perhaps a metaphor will help you…

Acquaintances and Friends

An acquaintance is someone you’ve bumped into. You happen to be in the same place at the same time. You may have similar interests (which is why you are in the same place at the same time). You may even been introduced by someone else because of your similarities. You’ve talked to each other a little bit. There is some give and take. But because you don’t know each other that well if you never see them ever again you’re not heartbroken. There hasn’t been a strong connection.

A friend is someone you know and who knows you. You’ve had common experiences and you’ve had many conversations, you’ve helped many times and they’ve helped you. You’ve spent time together. They value you, your capabilities, and your insights.

A normal customer is like an acquaintance. A client is like a friend.

Below are general statements about friends and acquaintances, but read them with an eye toward clients and normal customers.

• You have many more acquaintances than you do friends.
• Acquaintances come and go, but friends are much more consistently a part of your life.
• Acquaintances can become friends.
• Friendships can decay, but they do not turn back into acquaintances.
• You trust friends.
• If a friend speaks, you listen, and you take it to heart.
• If an acquaintances speaks you take what they say much more lightly.
• You cannot have a friend without them first having been an acquaintance.
• You cannot force friendship, there is a process of growth and deepening.
• Things become stale and personal growth slows if you only have friends and no new acquaintances.

Who are pseudo-customers, then?

Some of your acquaintances you didn’t intentionally bring into your world. You bumped into them. Some of them you’re very very glad you did – the relationship is worth it. But there are those you really wished you hadn’t.

It’s the same in business – there are some people who are customers that just happened upon you. Depending on your industry and your skill in marketing and sales, this may only be a small portion of your business. The question is, do take advice from them? Do you define yourself by what they say about you? Or do you make a distinction between their input and others input? Note, this doesn’t mean it’s smart to ignore it. It means it’s not the same value.

Two Types of Acquaintances, One Type of Friend

Acquaintances, you want either to get to know them better or leave them where you found them.

Normal customers are acquaintances that you would like the get to know better, many you would like to become friends.

Pseudo-customers are acquaintances that you would not like to know better, the more effectively you lessen the amount of time and resources you expend on them, the better. Clients are former acquaintances who have become business “friends.” They are why you are in business and they bring your business to the next level because they are where your profits come from.

So what? This is interesting and all, but what can I get out of this?

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself…

• Do I have a process of where this customer can easily move to being a client? What steps would be in it?
• Do I have a way to distinguish between a customer and a client? How?
• Do I even know the difference in value of a customer or a client? How would I measure that?
• What if I’ve misidentified a client as a customer or a customer as a client? How do I correct this?
• Do I have a process of getting rid of pseudo-customers? If I can’t get rid of them, how can I lessen their impact?

Toussaint Goudeaux is a Principal with Ontologi, a strategic consulting firm focusing on… well, focus. Focus may be the missing ingredient for a business wanting to move to the next level. For more information please visit http://www.ontologi.com

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