Choosing your customers

"Choose your customers, choose your future

Marketers rarely think about choosing customers... like a sailor on shore leave, we're not so picky. Huge mistake.

Your customers define what you make, how you make it, where you sell it, what you charge, who you hire and even how you fund your business. If your customer base changes over time but you fail to make changes in the rest of your organization, stress and failure will follow.

Sell to angry cheapskates and your business will reflect that. On the other hand, when you find great customers, they will eagerly co-create with you. They will engage and invent and spread the word.

It takes vision and guts to turn someone down and focus on a different segment, on people who might be more difficult to sell at first, but will lead you where you want to go over time."

Oooh, this is something I've never heard of. In my fairly educated view of business, I would think that one should never balk at ANYONE who wants to give you their money. Perhaps a better way for Seth to say this is that you should always be aware of your target market (that, I understand).

Finding great customers is harder than he's making it sound, I think. Most business will fall into the above mentioned category of pandering to all comers. Sure, marketers talk about those elusive trend setting customers, but how do you actually go out and find them? That's what I want to know. Do you hire some lowly design graduate (or an unpaid intern) and make them scour blogs for people who seem like they know what they're talking about?

via Seth Godin