25 Things that People — Our Key Customers — Really Want

SIMPLE SALE SERIES

Everyone Has Customers

I’ve been thinking a lot about customers lately. We all have them. Some are traditional sorts. They come to our businesses and pay us for products or services. Some are a little less conventional — they come in a customer role for things that don’t cost. Blog readers, first graders, park users are customers like those. Other customers don’t seem like customers at all, but really they are . . . mothers, fathers, sons, daughters all rely on our services like customers.

So it seems that knowing what customers want is more than a good idea. With that many customers everywhere we look, knowing what keeps them on a happy note would seem more like survival. Don’t you think?

25 Things that People — Our Key Customers — Really Want

Whether we have a business or we are just in the business of living, it’s good to know what will help us deliver a smile on the faces of the folks we care most about.

This list works for every kind of customer I’ve been able to think up. (Don’t go getting kinky on me.)

1. People want help solving a problem.
2. People want folks to notice them.
3. People want to be heard when they offer their thoughts.
4. People want to feel smart.
5. People want to be a part of things.
6. People want to be generous and for you to be generous too.
7. People want give and be good things and want you to give and be good things too.
8. People want to not worry . . . about time, money, health, injury, or other danger.
9. People want to know that you’ll be the same person or better than the last time they saw you.
10. People want to be entertained.
11. People want to be informed.
12. People want to learn.
13. People want to know you don’t say bad things about them.
14. People want to know they aren’t a number or a metric.
15. People want good cake not just icing on a bad one.
16. People do want the truth. They just don’t want it delivered with a sledgehammer.
17. People want to believe in something without someone picking on them for it.
18. People don’t want innovation. They want things that make life more livable.
19. People want things and experiences that make their fill their time more meaningfully.
20. People want to be understood.
21. People want their questions answered even when the answer is “I don’t know.”
22. People want the right to make mistakes without losing every time they do.
23. People want to make their own choices.
24. People want to know that you value their differences.
25. People want to know that you know they are people.

People aren’t hard to understand. We all were born one of them. The trick is to keep in mind that folks around us — even folks we don’t know –are people too. They have their own thoughts and desires in the same way we have ours. We can meet with them where we agree — 25 points up there give us plenty to start with.

In our lives and in our businesses, people are our only customers for our actions and behaviors. If we make it about THEM, everyone will be just a little bit nicer. Lose track of that and they’ll remind us.

What things do the people in your life want? Are you a product of your environment? Could you be a better one?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.