Stop fretting about pleasing people who aren’t your customers

I’m going to make it short and sweet this week. I’ve recently had a number of conversations with people where my brand advice to them ended with the following statement: Everyone is not your customer.

It should be obvious and some companies do get it. Too many don’t.

There are plenty of ways you can start to look at who is your customer or not and it usually begins with my caring on some level about what you care about. Don’t try to please everyone. Pick something to stand for that you care about – low prices, or cool design, or the environment, or organic, or Australian made, or …

Look at any strong and resilient brand. They all share a crystal clear knowledge about what they care about and who their potential customer is.

If you don’t know who your customer is stop everything and figure it out. I mean that. Do it right now. Because for every hour you don’t know you are wasting resources trying to get to the wrong people.

• Where do they live?
• What do they like to do?
• How old are they?
• Are they married, single, have kids?
• Are they male or female or both?
• Are they little kids or teenagers?
• Are they party animals or home bodies?
• Do they live in a house or an apartment or a commune?
• Do they have a car?

Keep asking questions until you have a picture.

Everyone is not your customer.

See you next week.

This article was first published on February 25, 2013 as ‘Everyone is not your customer’.

Michel is an independent brand advocate dedicated to helping organisations make promises they can keep and keep the promises they make – with a strong, resilient organisation as the result. She also publishes a blog at michelhogan.com. You can follow Michel on Twitter @michelhogan.