What The Customer Wants You To Know

I am reading a really good book, actually two, by Ram Charan. One is What The Customer Wants You To Know and the other is Know-How which I haven't finished yet. I highly recommend What The Customer Wants You To Know. It's a fantastic book about how to look at sales and new business development in a radically new light. For example, here's a clip from the book:

When I think about our own vendors, all they do is keep trying to beat each other on price," he told Phil. "They tell us how much money we can save if we go with them. But my biggest challenge is building revenues and stemming the erosion in market share. I can't recall any supplier coming to us with ideas for generating more sales or winning more market share, the things really value."

As a business owner, when is the last time you dug deep to find out what your customer's goals, priorities and competitive challenges are? If you can't recall, I suggest you buy this book. It's a door-opener to growing your business. Within the first 40 pages, I dog-eared nearly every other page for reference later.

Excerpt from What The Customer Wants You To Know here.

Just in (1/28/08) and featured in the Wall Street Journal:
Next in Line for Reinvention: The Art of Selling
Consultant Ram Charan Says Focus Is All Wrong; What a Customer Needs

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