Have we forgotten why businesses exist?
Somewhere along the way, many of us have been gaslighted into believing that a desire to focus intensely on the customer is somehow separate from the desire to run a profitable business. It's almost as if building trust with and solving a need for a customer is a delightful byproduct if and when it occurs, but it's not a core requirement.
Just reading this sounds ridiculous.
If you haven't built a connection between your customers and your brand, and they don’t know what you stand for or the value that you add to their lives, then you’ve ensured that you are irrelevant. And if you don’t have an intense focus on your customer and solving their problem and/or helping them live a better life, why would anyone buy or continue buying anything from you, assuming they have a choice?
So, if the brand is irrelevant and customers stop choosing the business's functional solutions because they got a better price, found a perceived better alternative or another company just gave them the feeling that they give a shit about them, how does the business make money?
Please know that I have zero philosophical issues with a company striving to maximize revenue and profits. My only problem lies with the idea that you can get there without a continuous, intense focus on providing real, true value for customers.
In a world in which even the marketing team, who has historically taken on much of the responsibility of nurturing customers and keeping their needs at the center of every business conversation, seems to be heavily (or sometimes solely) focused on tactical outcomes and scorecards, it begs the question: Who is looking out for the customer?
Is anyone else feeling this way? Is it just me?
Get out of my mind!