Knowledge

Do You Know How Important Is Your Customer Or Even What They Want?

There are so-called business coaches who foolishly teach that if you are interested in a particular idea/product, it proves that there is a demand for it and that you can make a business out of it. This is a very foolish way of thinking.

These so-called business coaches fail to see that for something to be a business, a certain level of profitability must be achieved. Therefore, if you are selling a product whose demand is so little that you can’t make a living off it, it is not considered a business at all.

Remember the movie Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner? The movie popularized the saying: “If You Build It, They Would Come…” The saying has seeped in to popular culture and even in the business world.

As a result, many turn their passions into businesses without giving a thought if there would be enough customers for their passion products or services. The sad reality is that it takes more than mere passion to succeed in business.

There are stories floating around about businesspersons who developed an obsession towards their invention/product. They neglected their family and friends and even gambled their entire fortune just to pursue their obsession of selling a so-called “million dollar product/invention”.

According to the story, the inventor was so obsessed with his invention/product that he mortgaged their house without telling his wife. He also went into significant debt, again not telling his wife. This was because his wife was getting worried about his obsession.

The result of his obsession? His invention/product was a business failure. He never got to recoup his costs in developing, manufacturing and selling his invention/product. This is not an all to uncommon story. According to US business statistics, less than 10% of all new products become successful for example in the US.

What happened to the obsessed inventor? He went bankrupt, lost his house and his wife left him. The moral of the story: the businessperson should have researched first if there was a genuine customer demand for his invention/product.

A successful businessperson in the telecommunications industry told me that when he first started, all he had in his possession was his cellphone/mobile. He never needed a product. He asked around what his customers needed and he sold them what they wanted. He resold products from vendors for a cut of the profits.

Another successful businessperson I know in the logistics industry spent most of his time drinking at pubs. He would get shipping orders from his drinking buddies who are also his customers. He would then give the orders to an actual logistics company and split the profits with them.

As you can see, these successful businesspersons didn’t really invent a hi-tech product. They don’t even have offices nor staff yet they became very rich businesspersons. There are a multitude of products and services that consumers would pay for. You just need to provide this product or service, the customer doesn’t really care how you would do this.

For example, the Segway was a hi-tech product but a business failure. Contrast this with cheap hoverboards which are low-tech but are a business success. The moral of the story: Don’t concentrate on your product, concentrate on your customers.

I’m sure that at one point in time, you would have visited an e-commerce site like Amazon to buy a product online. One of the things that you would notice at the onset is that there would be several or a multitude of vendors selling the same identical product at varying prices.

This is a sad reality for many businesspersons who spend a lot of money and time inventing a product only to see their invention/product counterfeited in a short time. This especially affects small businesses who only depend on their intellectual property to make money from their invention/product.

This sad reality might be very bad to the actual owner of the invention/product but to most buyers of the invention/product, this is not an issue for them. The sad reality is that for the most part, many customers don’t really care if a product is a counterfeit as long as the counterfeit meets their buying requirements which is usually the price of the product.

For example, many US citizens have a negative opinion of China and the way many Chinese businesses operate. However, these same citizens have no qualms of buying the products of China.

There was a time when only US made products where deemed as high quality products, then this customer thinking shifted to Japanese products, then Taiwanese, China, Korea, Vietnam, India and now Pakistan. The moral of the story? Most consumers don’t really care who makes the product anymore as long as the product satisfy their buying requirements like price.

Yes, Many customers still care about the brand of a product. For example, the clothing company Supreme has such a strong brand that they can even successfully sell non-clothing related products. For example, they were able to successfully sell red clay bricks which are objects meant for home construction and not a clothing object.

This is also the reason why counterfeiters copy the products of companies selling branded products. This is because selling counterfeit branded products is very profitable. From counterfeit Nike shoes to counterfeit Tesla cars, counterfeiters would copy any successful brand.

As already stated, most consumers don’t care if a product is counterfeit as long as the counterfeit product meets their buying needs. For the most part, many customers know that they are buying counterfeit branded products but don’t really care about it.

It is estimated that as of 2021, the counterfeiting industry is already worth US$ 117 billion and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 12.5% from 2021 to 2026, reaching a market size of US$ 211.3 billion by 2026. As you can see, counterfeiting is very profitable and is fast growing.

Many customers, especially those who are not financially well off particularly want the products and services that they buy to be cheap, even dirt cheap. This is exactly the reason why China has become the manufacturing powerhouse of the world. It offers products and even services at very cheap prices that are hard to match.

This is also the reason why counterfeiting is a fast growing industry. Many customers now prefer counterfeit products over original products because of the simple fact that counterfeit products are much, much cheaper as compared to the original products.

This was how Walmart became the largest brick and mortar store in the US originally. It offered very cheap products which virtually killed off most of the smaller mom and pop shops which cannot compete with Walmart based on price alone.

This has also been the reason why discount and dollar stores are thriving. Many consumers today cannot afford to go on shopping splurges like they used to do, but at least they can splurge on dollar priced items on discount and dollar stores.

Even food products are not exempted from this fast growing trend. Many supermarkets now compete with manufacturers by offering much cheaper in-house food products. Although many of these in-house food product can’t compete in terms of quality, customers still buy them because of the very cheap price.

For the most part, customers don’t really care how you made the product. Whether you made it by hand or by automated machine, most consumers don’t care. They don’t care if it took you a long or short time to make your product. They want their product now.

Also, many customers don’t really care about the labor used to make your product. Remember Apple, Samsung and other cellphone/mobile manufacturers? They have been accused of slave-like labor conditions but these doesn’t seem to affect their product’s sales.

Also, many consumers don’t care if your company is losing money manufacturing and selling your products. For example, the vast majority of videogame companies don’t make money from their videogames, but customers don’t really care about this unless they really love a videogame.

For the most part, consumers would only care how their product is being made if it hurts their wallet or health. For example, whenever car petrol prices increase even by a small amount, there would be a huge public outcry especially from motorists.

As to health, Fast Food companies are always a target for example. Many consumer activists demand that fast food companies introduce healthy food options but don’t really care if the fast food companies would lose a lot of money by complying with their demands.

Many aspiring businessperson make the unfortunate mistake of only concentrating on their product. They believe that if they have the best product, people would buy it. But as already stated, a product is just one aspect of the business, it’s the customer who ultimately decide if a business would thrive or fail.

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