Sustaining Speed - Stay Close To The Customer

Posted on February 3rd, 2012

Continuing our series based on the writings of Jason Jennings, author of it’s not the BIG that eat the SMALL...it’s the FAST that eat the SLOW and other popular business books. Special thanks to him for granting us permission to create a unique series of Leadership Practices focused on the themes Fast and Faster. See Contributing Authors for a more detailed explanation.

“We spent years finding out the hard way that just because the customer can buy doesn’t mean we should sell to them. The wrong customer can be an abomination. (p. 238)*
 
A SIXTY-SECOND HEADS-UP (p. 242)

• Finding, keeping, and growing the “right” customer requires knowing and liking them.
• Doing business with the wrong customers will eventually slow an organization down.
• Marginal buyers cause employee and good customer burnout.
• Every marginal deal requires the same financial resources as the best paying customers.
• Listening to customers isn’t the same as not talking.
• Listening requires empathy, curiosity, and patience.
• Be an anonymous customer of your own business to really know what it’s like.

Note: One of the things our “right” customers like is Jason Jennings   After listening to your responses about his Leadership Practice series, we asked Jason (and he agreed) to be the Keynote speaker at our April 24, 2012 Mason Leadership Symposium. 
 
An update:  Jason Jennings has also agreed to do one break-out session at the Symposium.  We expect this to be a popular choice.  Register now – here.  (Break-out sessions are assigned in the order of registration.)

“USA Today has named Jason Jennings one of the three best business speakers.”

^*Page numbers are from it’s not the BIG that eat the SMALL . . . it’s the FAST that eat the SLOW, by Jason Jennings & Laurence Haughton, reprinted with the permission of Jason Jennings.