How do I connect my business strategy with my customer’s needs?

At my most recent TEC meeting we had Professor Bob Nordlinger reminding us that our business strategy must be deeply connected to what our customers want.

This seems an obvious concept, but how often have we seen strategic plans that make little connection with customers?

These plans are often the brainchild of someone who is deeply involved in the business, but is not looking outside to question the business proposition in terms of who is prepared to pay and how much are they prepared to pay for whatever services/products the business has on offer!

Connecting strategy with sales is then the next step – and my great belief about selling is that sales is more about listening than telling.

I am reminded of the many mistakes I made when I first started Pola Cosmetics, a direct selling business.

The key to this business really lay in recruiting sales people – this was the distribution channel to market and having started the business as the sole sales person, it was very clear to me that growing a national business would be hard on my own.

So back to the point about connecting strategy with customers and listening.

When I started in that business I found it very difficult to recruit sales people. Of course people are always skeptical about new businesses, but this block was something more than that. I was talking to dozens of women who were expressing interest but I just could not get them over the line!

After three months my business mentor, the man who had brought the products to Australia, suggested that he attend a sales presentation and listen to my sales/recruiting approach.

Now let me tell you, I was very nervous about this, even though my sales figures were great, I was not getting a sales team on board and I was resistant to having someone check on what was going wrong with my recruiting (I have since learned the benefit of having a mentor to review ones performance!).

The solution was really quite simple. I was so caught up in the excitement of the Pola opportunity and selling that opportunity that I was simply not listening to what my customers (potential sales people) were wanting.

A small but critical mistake – once this was pointed out to me – that everyone is very different, has different needs and buys into propositions for different reasons – recruiting became easy, or should I say easier. As I refined my ability to listen, the percentage success rate became higher and higher. Instead of one in 10 joining the business, by the end of sixteen months it became seven to eight in 10 – the impact of this on the business was huge.

A simple lesson about connecting strategy with customers – make sure yours is clearly connected to the needs, wants and reasons for customers to buy from you.

No beautifully scripted strategic plan will better the idea that the sole purpose of any business – customer satisfaction.

To read more Marcia Griffin expert advice, click here.

Marcia’s latest book, High Heeled Success (pictured left), and is a frank account of building a business from a solitary sales person to a multi-million dollar business with 4700 sales consultants around Australia and New Zealand. Contact Marcia to purchase. Marcia’s latest venture is skin care company griffin+row.