Should a Customer be Your BFF? Why Not?
I gave a marketing workshop this morning to a group of small business owners and one of our topics was how to identify an "ideal customer." I asked the group to describe what they think is their ideal customer. "Well, they're kind of like me," Deanna Mueller of Fetch! Pet Care in Austin said. "I mean, they like what I like, they think like me. They are kind of like a best friend." What a great perspective!
So, should a customer be your BFF -- your " best friend forever?" Within the context of a business relationship, absolutely! You want customers to know, like and trust you, right? If you're delivering a great product and high quality service -- if you're helping your customer succeed in their business, meet a need or solve a problem, it's natural that you'll connect with them on some sort of BFF level. If you're a man reading this, don't worry; I'm not talking about going shopping with your customers. But if you are focusing on getting more ideal customers, it will help to think about them like a close friend. You know what makes them tick. You have an honest conversation with them. You laugh. You cry. You send a kind note, share a new discovery or just listen to their problems. You even ignore some of their annoying character traits because you know they're not perfect -- no one is.
In my last post, I encouraged you to take a client inventory to see who you might fire and to identify your ideal clients and "hire" more like them. So go through that list again. Look for potential BFFs and create a profile that describes them. List their type of business, their demographics and what they like and value. That's a target market you should grow. But don't stop there. A BFF relationship involves giving and receiving. Your BFF is very likely to tell others about you, so ask them to be a referral partner.
Give them talking points about your target market, your unique difference and any special offer you might have. Print up some customized promotional cards they can hand to their clients, or create a custom landing page on your website to which they can refer their customers. It should offer something of value -- a free consultation or a discount that will make them look good too. It can say something like "As a valued customer, we're pleased to offer you this special program to help improve your business."
If you don't have any BFF-like clients on your customer list, what can you change about the way you treat your customers to get some?
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Reader Comments (3)
Hey Rick. I would love to have attended the workshop; maybe next time. As a solopreneur startup, defining my ideal client has been a whopper of a task.
I'm not so sure about the BFF concept but I get your point. In the end, I want my clients to feel that they received value for my services and achieved the objective(s).
I'm researching Project Management software for a client and have asked each vendor two specific things - What differentiates you and Describe your ideal client. Only one - of many - gave what I believe is a meaningful response. The others were predictable mumbo jumbo jargon that anyone could claim.
The meaningful response was - "Differentiating PM products today is very hard. You can go and find about 200 products that all claim to do the same thing. Our focus has been in providing enough functionality to be able to capture and manage the project and resources in an organization without becoming too complex. We have done very well in small to medium size companies that want to transition from an ad-hoc project environment to a single source of information about projects. We are a small company and have done well by providing a good product at a reasonable price. We are not trying to become the next big thing in project management. Our product offers enough features without being so complex that you spend all of your time managing the tool."
There's some standard comments here but overall I found this response meaningful and especially liked "We have done very well in..."
All the best to you!
Keith,
The notion of a BFF in business does have its limitations, I agree. But having thought through my relationships with trusted contractors over the years, the concept resonated with me. When I was going through a challenging crisis period, my contractor/consultant was there for me as a client -- as a sounding board in addition to taking on specific tasks to help solve our problem. That's really an ideal kind of relationship. They likely invested more hours in our problem than they billed me for too. Again, it developed further trust. The consultant did business with us from another state, but that relationship developed just as effectively.
As a startup, it is a challenge to identify your ideal client because you may not have many yet, so the BFF analogy probably isn't applicable - it's a bit too touchy-feely. There are other measures though, such as the response you received, that are more tangible in nature. Narrowing your market segment by identifying demographics, geography, or specific industries is a good place to start as well.
I'll be announcing more workshops like the one today in the coming weeks. Hope to see you at one of them. In fact, there is a free Social Media Pro workshop coming up soon. Check it out: http://biznik.com/events/social-media-pro-workshop
Rick, I continuously refer to "Selling the Invisible" by Harry Beckwith, for marketing strategy and tactics. Two guiding principles I adopted are: (1) “If you’re selling a service, you’re selling a relationship.” and (2) "the more alike two services are, the more important each difference becomes…accentuate the trivial”. I think that's consistent with your concept that your "ideal" or best customers are going to be like BFF's. You have to find "connectors" to close the initial sale and you have to nurture them to enjoy recurring sales to that customer.
BTW, Deanna was very proud that she inspired your blog entry.