Chapter 1

Give Them What They Want

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Hey, this should be easy. If you don’t know what they want, ask them. BTW if you’re in business and you don’t know what your customers want, watch out. You’re going to get your ass kicked if a competitor figures out the answer to that question before you do.

Plumbing – what could you possibly write about to people who buy plumbing products. Hmmm. Well, if you sell to retail customers, you can bet that they are 2 things: homeowners and aspiring do-it-yourselfers. Renters don’t fix the plumbing and neither do people who don’t enjoy diving into a home fix-up project. Hey, now we’re getting somewhere – let’s e-mail them a newsletter that talks about home renos and home ownership issues. While we’re at it, it may be a while before they buy more plumbing products, but let’s get the lighting shop across the street to pitch in and help cover the cost of the articles we’re getting written in exchange for an ad in our newsletter.

What’s that, the people buying your plumbing fixtures are contractors, not retail buyers? Giddy-up – let’s get a newsletter going that talks about business issues, sales skills for contractors, hiring issues, etc. Now they’re reading. OK, OK, but what if you have some retail customers and some contractors? If that’s the case and both groups are big enough, you’ll simply want to do 2 different newsletters that are written appropriately for each group.

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