In the February edition of Optimize Magazine, Editor-In-Chief Brian Gillooly shares 3 questions he likes to ask CIOs and others to get them to expand their thinking beyond their day to day minutiae. The questions (which Guillory attributes to his colleague Bob Evans) are:
- What business are you in today?
- What business will your customers want you to be in six months from now?
- What business will your customers demand you be in a year from now?
I think performing this kind of exercise that forces you to look up once in a while to evaluate where you are headed and is this direction aligned with your customers needs, is important for small business owners. When working on marketing plans with small business owners, it is not uncommon to discover that what the owner thinks is valued by the customer is actually very different from what the customer wants and values (question #1).Questions # 2 and #3 can help you get back and stay on track.
The other point that I hope these questions drive home is the need to talk to your customers on a regular basis. This is one area where the small business has a tremendous advantage over large corporations; they can personally visit with their customers. The only way you can KNOW what your customers will need 6 or 12 months from now is to talk to and LISTEN to them. They may not be able to tell you the exact solution they need, but they will tell you what problems they need to address.
