Episode #008 It’s Not About You It’s About the Customer [00:00:00] Welcome to the marketing cocktails podcast. We're your hosts, Terrica Strozier, that's me a brand designer and sugar attic and Vanessa Shepherd, launch strategist and content creator with a love of all things Disney. Each week, you'll hear our behind the scenes conversation and expert advice on marketing and launching your next offer or product while doing it all ethically and organically. And giving that bro marketer advice, the boot. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Grab a drink and let's jump into today's episode. Welcome to episode eight of the podcast. And today we're tackling a really important topic, which is customers, and that it's not all about you. And it is about the customer. The customers are at the heart of your business. So if you want our advice on how you craft offers and keep the customer at the forefront of your mind, even though they're not always right, stay tuned to this episode. In business, it is not all about what you want, [00:01:00] but you need to create your offers and your items that you sell or services that you provide with your customer in mind. So, while I don't love the ideal customer avatar, there does need to be, I'm going to, I'm going to keep saying this guys, whatever, here we go. Terrica: You do need to have an end goal for your customer, whoever that customer is, having some specificity on that customer will allow you to craft offers and, products that fit the needs of that client. But along the way, one thing that I focus on a lot is the customer journey. When people work with me or purchase something from me, I want that process to be seamless. I want it to be easy. I don't want them to feel that they have to click on that about 10 gazillion links [00:02:00] or get inudated with like popup ads all the time. Cause that'll make people run like so fast. I want the people during the process to feel like, Oh my gosh, this was so easy to buy her product. I love it. I love the support that I got. I love the process of it all. So having that in mind, when you're crafting these things is like paramount. I know that we create businesses based off of what we're good at or what we want to put into the universe, but it's not all about you. It's not, it's not, it's not. And if you focus on yourself, Then even if you do make money, cause I'm pretty sure there's people out there there's always an exception to a rule. You will get to a point where you plateau, you will get to a point where you can't go any further or you will get to a point where people really start to see you for you are not saying that's a bad thing, but in business it could be on the end that. [00:03:00] Someone says, Oh, I mean, their products are nice, but the customer service socks, or they don't care about me. And I sent an email, never, no one never answers. Like, do they not value my money? Do they not value my time. Well, if they don't value me, then I'm going to go to their competitor. maybe across the physical street or across the proverbial virtual street and I'm going to purchase from them because they obviously don't value me. Vanessa: That happens so often in business. And there's even like a whole, whole segment of industry research around being able to craft those awesome customer experiences. Like, I don't know what it was maybe four or five years ago. Now I went to an entire conference that was just around customer experience, customer journey and customer service. And we spent 48 hours talking. Nothing else. And let me tell you the ideas that were coming in were wicked. And I went, you know, went back to my corporate job cause I was one of two people that got sent or no, there's three of us on that [00:04:00] trip. But two people from the area I worked in and we went back and I was like, let's implement, you know, some of what we learned, not all the things, cause not all of them made sense, but, and the other person was like, No, we're good. It was a fine conference. It was got me in the office. I was like, Whoa, we can be doing so many. I think better if we actually were approaching the way we do business with that end customer in mind, even, even though like at the time, our end customer was just people in a different department. I said, if we think about those people as our customers a little bit more than our coworkers, then we can actually come out with. A process and assistance and collaboration that works and, and strengthens that relationship instead of us always butting heads with them or them always butting heads with us. And I actually got to spearhead that whole, kind of like kickoff of the project to be able to frame out what [00:05:00] would work and what didn't work. And we had so many different conversations about it that it actually reformulated the entire way our department was structured and the way we brought people in. And that shift allowed there to be a lot less contention between what our department did and what the other department date. And now the collaboration is even stronger than where it was when I, when I worked there a few years ago Terrica: And see, I love that. If you all don't know, then people are my jam, but then we get into customer experience. And it's really, my jam is it's combining my love for people and my love for making people happy and satisfying a need. But that's here nor there, regardless of that, what I really love about that is it shows you that it doesn't always have to be a. Business to customer type relationship, relationship for you to really have that, that end goal in mind [00:06:00] that it can be, I think, at the baser level it's relationship building. Cause that's what it is. And even super, super foundational book below that, to me, it's. Having that empathy in mind and putting yourselves in the shoes of your customer on a consistent basis. It's not only a one time deal. Guys. You don't start your business or, or craft an offer or craft a product and say, Oh, this is going to be an, you know, the customer journey of the customer is gonna start here, here, and I'll walk into our store. They will be greeted. Then they will be able to browse for X amount. And then they get here and they buy, they sell, we follow up and it's done. That's great that you have that laid out and you should have it, However, this is an ongoing process. Your customers will change as your offer shape as your product changes as the market changes because the world is always changing and being in tune with your customer being open, [00:07:00] being receptive, the feedback and not immediately taking it as a hit to you. I know guys. to quote Erkyah Badu, I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my shit. I am. So when you tell me you don't like it? Yes. There's initial like pierced to the heart, like, Oh, I spent so much time and it's amazing, but I have to step outside of myself and then see, okay. What was it about it that you did not like, how can I make it better? And that openness to changing and crafting and pivoting yourself in a way that really serves those people will have you with, you know, what we call super fans. I mean, look at Apple guys, and I'm an Apple super fan. I, you know, iphones, they annoy me and they're like sometimes glitchy, but I keep buying one. I will keep buying one and I will buy another Macbook. And, and right now I'm sitting on my [00:08:00] desk. I have a Macbook an iphone and a iPad. Air pods, Apple pencil. It's a bad, however, I am so going to cause cause when I go into an Apple store, I'm immediately greeted. I mean the atmosphere's is light and it's bright and you see all these new tech goodies that just get you like the little kid, that little gift that goes the little girl that gets skipped so excited. Like I just want to go play with them. I want to touch it. And even though people tell me the price point is like, Oh, ma'am,you like that that's $1,400. I'm like, shit. But then I'm like, Oh, it's Apple. I'll buy it. I don't know what I gotta do to pay for it, but I'm gonna buy it. You want people to have that feeling and that experience when they engage with you and your business. Vanessa: Absolutely. Like, there's so many different reasons. Like if you, if I actually think about all the different reasons that I've [00:09:00] boycotted a brand or that I've like gone in and gone out of my way to drive clear across the city to shop at a store when I probably could have found something similar, you know, probably in my neck of the woods. I don't know there stores I don't shop at here because the services sucks. And there's stories that I'll go out of my way to shop at because services is awesome. but it's about that experience from the way it looks the way it feels all the way down to how your people interact with, with the customer when you're in the store, all of that matters and listening. Oh my gosh. So if you ha, if you do, if you're doing everything right, if you're checking all the boxes all the way down, but you're not actually listening to the customer in the end, The again, you're going to get, like I said, I'm just going to go somewhere else because people want to feel like you're actually hearing what they have to say. and internalizing it and, and making what you do even better. It's a kind of a continual, its a continual cycle that is never going to end for as long as you're in business Terrica: And that is so [00:10:00] true. we've seen it. So many times I've seen it in, in really small businesses where, where people give a service and people at their core, they love it. They're like we really don't want to go anywhere else. We want to stay here. We want to continue learning from you, buying from you. But your customer service has to be better. Like, I want to feel like I'm heard, do you hear me? And then the owner, someone says like, yeah, I hear you. But in their head, they've immediately turned off