Thursday, May 20, 2010

What your client needs not wants

Recently we had a situation at our agency that reminded me of the importance of delivering what the client needs rather than what they may think they want.

While clients play a major role in decisions and influence in your companies actions mostly because every company is trying to please their clients and keep them happy in order to create long term relationships, the truth is that many times in order to actually please the client and deliver the results you must focus on what the client really needs rather than what they are saying they want.

Let me clarify, a client requests you change your strategy because they have a few ideas that they want to include and really focus on. You then deviate off of the path that you absolutely know works and know gets results in a effort to serve the client and address their wants. The results then reflect the deviation off course from what you know you should have done, further, the client is not happy which is bad for business altogether.

Had you held your position and only sold and delivered the client on what you knew was successful, what gets results and what was really what the client needed, you would ultimately end up with a happy client and a great long term relationship.

Focus on what you do as a company that you know works and gets results and then identify what the client really needs in order to address a problem and sell and deliver only that. By sticking to your guns sort to speak and delivering a product or service that handles your clients actual needs (as long as you have correctly identified them) will guarantee you positive results and happy clients. Handle your clients needs only and don't be persuaded to deviate to focus on wants that you know will take the strategy off course with results that will not be the desired outcome.

As the saying goes.... "Find a need.... fill a need"

- Robert Cornish

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