Business Development For Dummies

Chapter 3

Diving Inside Your Customer’s Head

In This Chapter

Understanding your customer’s requirements

Building your business development lifecycle

I know that this chapter’s title sounds a bit like one of those Hollywood movies where a scientist is shrunk and injected into another person’s body, but you can relax. I’m talking metaphorically here and simply mean that understanding your customers is essential.

In fact, if such a thing as a magic key to business development exists, you find it in a deep understanding of your prospective, current and past customers. They represent the marketplace and they can provide the clues as to what the marketplace wants.

In Chapter 2, I focus on you and your business development health, but here I ask you to step into your customer’s world more fully. After all, love ’em or hate ’em, customers are the reason you’re doing business, and shifting your focus to the customer’s viewpoint helps you to see new possibilities.

In this chapter I drill down into the early stages of the customer relationship, which are typically where vendors most commonly make the wrong moves. You take a deep breath and dive into thinking about your customers, seeking to interact seriously with their concerns and desires. I describe a business development concept that ...