Asking Your Customers What They Need is a Great Small Business Strategy

small business strategy

Let’s focus on a few business strategies that have helped our small business clients to get through rough spots, and move their businesses forward.  At the Watkins Firm, we have helped San Diego small business owners for several decades.  As trusted business advisors and general counsel, we do far more than draft contracts, we share sound counsel and advice to help our clients to grow and prosper.  We are a proven small business coach.  What strategies have helped our small business clients when they find themselves struggling?

One excellent small business strategy is to sit down with your customers, and simply ask them what they need help with, what they need.  Small business relationships are most often founded on trust, and this is one of the hardest elements to establish in business.  You have worked hard to serve your customers and provide the best products and services you can to advance their own business goals.  You have earned the trust they have placed in you.

Asking clients for a conversation is one of the easiest steps a small business owner can take to grow their business.  The first rule of this visit is that you are not there to sell anything.  Resist the temptation to proffer a solution to whatever problem or challenge your customer shares.  You are there to seek information, and ideas that will help your business in general, not to simply create an order.

Ask questions about your business relationship, what the client likes about doing business together, and reaffirm your appreciation for your ongoing relationship.  Ask if there are any areas in your relationship that you could improve upon.  Listen intently, and resist the urge to defend or explain any issues.  Thank them for sharing their candid feedback, and tell them you are going to think about what they’ve shared and how you can take steps to be even better at (whatever their issue or concern may be).

Now you are poised to ask a valuable question for both you and your customer:

“What else could we be doing to help your business to grow?  What do you need?”

Yes, you may receive a few surface level answers or evasive – “you’re doing great…we have everything we need” responses.  But more often than not your customer will share something that will re-light that entrepreneurial spirit within you and provide an idea and an opportunity that will expand your business not only with that customer, but across your business as a whole.

Finally, if you feel like your business is in neutral and you’re seeking an idea to move forward, here is perhaps one of the best pieces of advice and small business strategy we can share:  Never be afraid of change, or the problems associated with it.  Seek change.  Wherever you find it, you will discover abundant opportunity and substantial profit.

What areas of your business or industry are changing and evolving?  Answer that question, and the next steps should become much clearer.

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